Acoustic Research Institute
Acoustics is the science of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids. It deals with the interaction between sounds, objects, humans and animals, including sound perception and production.
The Acoustics Research Institute (ARI) is committed to application-oriented fundamental research in the field of acoustics. ARI consists of four groups working in close collaboration to address these research demands. Each of the groups is active in both fundamental and applied research, aiming for scientific excellency, particularly in interdisciplinary projects.
Research Group Acoustic Phonetics
Acoustic phonetics involves the study of speech production and perception in regard to higher grammatical levels, especially phonology. The acoustic model of speech production computes the resonances of the vocal tract during different articulatory configurations. Formant frequencies, fundamental frequency, amplitude spectra and duration are used to describe language varieties phonetically. The results are interpreted within a phonological framework. The focus lies on insufficiently described languages and language varieties. Speaker specific variants play an important role in speaker recognition. The comparison of the performance of automatic speaker recognition systems with the results of phonetic-phonological analysis methods is currently under investigation in forensic audio.