PhD B: To carry on doing it ?
Postdoc E: What Well , you know what I thought was right now we have p So I gave him the proposal for the transcription conventions . He made his , uh , suggestion of improvement .
PhD B: OK .
Postdoc E: The the It 's a good suggestion . So as far as I 'm concerned those transcription conventions are fixed right now . And so my next plan would be PhD B: What what do they what do they cover ?
Postdoc E: They 're very minimal . So , it would be good to just to summarize that . So , um , one of them is the idea of how to indicate speaker change ,
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: and this is a way which meshes well with with , uh , making it so that , uh , you know , on the At the PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: Boy , it 's such a nice interface . When you when you get the , um you you get the speech signal you also get down beneath it , an indication of , uh , if you have two speakers overlapping in a s in a single segment , you see them one displayed one above each other . And then at the same time the top s part of the screen is the actual verbatim thing . You can clip click on individual utterances and it 'll take you immediately to that part of the speech signal , and play it for you . And you can , eh you can work pretty well between those two these two things .
Undergrad D: Is there a limit to the number of speakers ?
Grad A: Um , the user interface only allows two . And so if if you 're using their interface to specify overlapping speakers you can only do two .
PhD B: Hmm .
Grad A: But my script can handle any . And their save format can handle any . And so , um , using this the convention that Jane and I have discussed , you can have as many overlapping speakers as you want .
Undergrad D: Do y is this a , uh , university project ?
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Th - this is the French software , right ?
Grad A: Yeah , French .
PhD B: Yeah , yeah ,
Grad A: Yeah . And they 're they 've been quite responsive .
PhD B: their academic .
Undergrad D: eh
Grad A: I 've been exchanging emails on various issues .
PhD B: Oh , really ?
Undergrad D: Uh , did you ask them to change the interface for more speakers ?
Postdoc E: Oh .
Grad A: Yes , and they said that 's on in in the works for the next version .
Undergrad D: Good .
PhD C: Oh , so multi multichannels .
Undergrad D: Good .
Grad A: Multichannels was also Well , they said they wanted to do it but that the code is really very organized around single channels . So I think that 's n unlikely to ha happen .
PhD C: I see . OK .
Undergrad D: Do - do you know what they 're using it for ? Why 'd they develop it ?
Grad A: For this exact task ?
PhD C: For transcription .
Undergrad D: Are they linguists ?
PhD C: It 's Undergrad D: But I mean , are they are they linguists or are they speech recognition people ?
Grad A: I think they 're linguists .
Postdoc E: Ho
PhD B: Linguists .
Postdoc E: Hmm .
PhD B: Yeah .
PhD C: They 're they have some connection to the LDC cuz the LDC has been advising them on this process , the Linguistic Data Consortium . Um ,
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
PhD C: so but a apart from that .
Grad A: It 's also All the source is available .
PhD C: Yeah .
Grad A: So .
PhD C: Right .
Grad A: If you if you speak TCLTK .
Undergrad D: Great . Mm - hmm .
Grad A: And they have they 've actually asked if we are willing to do any development and I said , well , maybe .
PhD C: Right .
Undergrad D: Good .
Grad A: So if we want if we did if we did something like programmed in a delay , which actually I think is a great idea , um , I 'm sure they would want that incorporated back in .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I do too .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Undergrad D: Their pre pre - lay .
PhD B: Pre - lay .
Grad A: Way .
Postdoc E: Pre - lay . Well , and they 've thought about things . You know , I mean , they they do have So you have when you when you play it back , um , it 's it is useful to have , uh , a a break mark to se segment it . But it wouldn't be strictly necessary cuz you can use the uh , the tabbed key to toggle the sound on and off . I mean , it 'll stop the s speech you know if you if you press a tab . And , um . And so , uh , that 's a nice feature . And then also once you 've put a break in then you have the option of cycling through the unit . You could do it like multiply until you get {comment} crazy and decide to stop cycling through that unit .
Undergrad D: Loop it ? Yo - you n you know , there 's al also the the user interface that 's missing .
Postdoc E: Or or or Undergrad D: It 's missing from all of our offices , and that is some sort of analog input for something like this . It 's what audio people actually use of course . It 's something that wh when you move your hand further , the sound goes faster past it , like fast forward . You know , like a joy stick or a uh , you could wire a mouse or trackball to do something like that .
Postdoc E: Why , that 's That 's not something I wanted to have happen .
Undergrad D: No , but I 'm saying if this is what professionals who actually do this kind of thing for for for m for video or for audio  where you you need to do this ,
Postdoc E: I see . Uh - huh .
Undergrad D: and so you get very good at sort of jostling back and forth , rather than hitting tab , and backspace , and carriage return , and enter , and things like that .
PhD B: Mmm . Mmm .
Postdoc E: Uh - huh .
Grad A: Yeah , we talked about things like foot pedals and other analog PhD C: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: So I mean , tho those are things we could do but I I just don't know how much it 's worth doing . I mean we 're just gonna have Undergrad D: Ye - Yeah .
PhD C: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Right .
Postdoc E: Yeah , I I agree . They they have several options . So , uh , you know , I mentioned the looping option . Another option is it 'll pause when it reaches the end of the boundary . And then to get to the next boundary you just press tab
Grad A: Hmm .
Postdoc E: and it goes on to the next unit .
Undergrad D: Cool .
Postdoc E: I mean , it 's very nicely thought out .
PhD C: Hmm .
Postdoc E: They thought about and also it 'll go around the c the , uh , I wanna say cursor but I 'm not sure if that 's the right thing .
Grad A: Point , whatever .
Postdoc E: Anyway , you can so they thought about different ways of having windows that you c uh work within ,
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: and But so in terms of the con the conventions , then , uh , basically , uh , it 's strictly orthographic which means with some w provisions for , uh , w uh , colloquial forms . So if a person said , " cuz " instead of " because " then I put a  an apostrophe at the beginning of the word and then in in double ang angle brackets what the full lexical item would be .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: And this could be something that was handled by a table or something but I think to have a convention marking it as a non - standard or wha I don't mean standard but a a a non uh , ortho orthographic , uh , whatever .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: Non - canonical .
PhD C: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: " Gonna " or " wanna " , you know , the same thing . And and there would be limits to how much refinement you want in indicating something as non - standard pres pronunciation .
PhD C: How are you handling backchannels ?
Postdoc E: Backchannels ?
Grad A: Comments .
Postdoc E: Um , you know oh , yes , there was some in my view , when i when you 've got it densely overlapping , um , I didn't worry about I didn't worry about s specific start times .
PhD C: What do you mean by du
Postdoc E: I sort of thought that this is not gonna be {comment} easily processed anyway and maybe I shouldn't spend too much time getting exactly when the person said " no " , or , you know , uh , i " immediate " .
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: And instead just sort of rendered " within this time slot , there were two people speaking during part of it
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: and if you want more detail , figure it out for yourself " ,
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: Well , I think what w what Eric was talking about was channels other than the direct speech ,
PhD C: I see .
Postdoc E: was sort of the way I felt @ @ Grad A: right ?
PhD C: Well , yeah , what I mean is wh I mean , when somebody says " uh - huh " in the middle of , uh , a @ @ Grad A: Yep .
Postdoc E: Uh - huh . That happened very seldom .
PhD C: Oh , cuz I was I was listening to Dan was agreeing a lot to things that you were saying as you were talking .
Undergrad D: Uh - huh . Uh - huh .
Postdoc E: Oh , well , thank you Dan .
PhD C: So .
Postdoc E: Appreciate it . Well , if it if there was a word like " right " , you know , then I wou I would indicate that it happened within the same tem time frame
Grad A: Yeah , there 's an overlapping mark .
PhD C: And PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc E: but wouldn't say exactly when it happened .
Undergrad D: I 'll be right back .
PhD B: I transcribed a minute of this stuff
PhD C: I see .
PhD B: and there was a lot of overlapping . It was Postdoc E: A lot of overlapping , yeah .
Grad A: Well there there 's a lot of overlapping at the beginning and end .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad A: Huge amounts .
PhD B: It was at the beginning .
Grad A: Um , when when no one i when we 're not actually in the meeting , and we 're all sort of separated , and and doing things . But even during the meeting there 's a lot of overlap but it it 's marked pretty clearly . Um , some of the backchannel stuff Jane had some comments and but I think a lot of them were because you were at the meeting . And so I think that that often  often you can't tell .
Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true . That 's another issue .
Grad A: I mean , Jane had had comments like uh , to who who the person was speaking to .
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc E: Yeah .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: Only when it was otherwise gonna be puzzling
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc E: because he was in the other room talking .
Grad A: Yeah , but someone who , uh , was just the transcriber wouldn't have known that .
Postdoc E: Yeah .
Grad A: Or when Dan said , " I wa I wasn't talking to you " .
PhD C: Right .
Postdoc E: That 's true . I know .
Undergrad D: So you take a bathroom break in the middle and and keep your head mount
Grad A: You have to turn off your mike .
PhD B: Yeah .
Undergrad D: Oh , you do ?
PhD B: You don't have to .
Postdoc E: Well he was so so he was checking the meter levels and and we were handling things while he was labeling the the whatever it was , the PDA ?
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Uh - huh .
Postdoc E: And and so he was in sort of you were sort of talking you know , so I was saying , like  " and I could label this one left . Right ? " And he and he said , " I don't see anything " . And he said  he said , " I wasn't talking to you " . Or it wasn't it didn't sound quite that rude .
Grad A: But Postdoc E: But really , no , uh w you know in the context if you know he can't hear what he 's saying Grad A: but when you w when you listen to it Undergrad D: he he It was a lot funnier if you were there though .
Postdoc E: Uh , yeah ,
Grad A: Well what what it what happens is if you 're a transcriber listening to it it sounds like Dan is just being a total  totally impolite .
Postdoc E: I know . Well , you 'll see . You can listen to it . Oh , I thought it was you who was . No , well , but you were you were asking off the wall questions .
Grad A: Um But but if you knew that that I wasn't actually in the room , and that Dan wasn't talking to me , it it became OK . So .
PhD B: I see .
Undergrad D: So th
Postdoc E: And that 's w that 's where I added comments .
PhD C: Hmm .
Postdoc E: The rest of the time I didn't bother with who was talking to who but but this was unusual circum circumstance .
Undergrad D: So this is this is gonna go on the meeting meeting transcriber bloopers tape , right ?
Grad A: Yes . Right .
Postdoc E: Well and part of it was funny , uh reason was because it was a mixed signal so you couldn't get any clues from volume that , you know , he was really far away from this conversation .
Grad A: Stereo . Yeah .
Postdoc E: You couldn't do that symmetrically in any case .
PhD B: No .
Grad A: Oh . I should rewrite the mix tool to put half the people in one channel and half in the other . I have a auto - gain - mixer tool that mixes all the head mounted microphones into one signal
Postdoc E: That 's a good idea .
Undergrad D: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: and that seems to work really well for the uh transcribers .
Undergrad D: Great .
Postdoc E: But I thought it would be you know , I I didn't wanna add more contextual comments than were needed but that , it seemed to me , clarified that the con what was going on . And , uh OK ,
PhD C: So , s
Postdoc E: so normalization PhD C: I was just gonna ask , uh , so I just wanted to c sort of finish off the question I had about backchannels ,
PhD B: Mmm .
PhD C: if that 's OK ,
Postdoc E: Yeah . OK .
PhD C: which which was , so say somebody 's talking for a while
Postdoc E: Yeah .
PhD C: and somebody goes " mm - hmm " in the middle of it , and and and what not , does the conversation come out from the or the person who 's speaking for the long time as one segment and then there 's this little tiny segment of this other speaker or does it does the fact that there 's a backchannel split the the the it in two .
Postdoc E: OK , my my focus was to try and maintain conten con content continuity and , uh , to keep it within what he was saying . Like I wouldn't say breath groups but prosodic or intonational groups as much as possible . So if someone said " mm - hmm " in the middle of a of someone 's , uh , uh , intonational contour , I I indicated it as , like what you just did .
PhD C: OK .
Postdoc E: then I indicated it as a segment which contained @ @ {comment} this utterance plus an overlap .
PhD B: But that 's but there 's only one there 's only one time boundary for both speakers ,
PhD C: OK .
PhD B: right ?
Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . And you know , it could be made more precise than that
PhD C: I see ,
Postdoc E: but I just thought PhD C: I see , OK .
Postdoc E: Yeah .
PhD C: Right .
Undergrad D: I think whenever we use these speech words we should always do the thing like you 're talking about , accent ,
Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . And then " hesitation " . Yeah . OK , and so then , uh , in terms of like words like " uh " and " um " I just wrote them because I figured there 's a limited number , and I keep them to a uh , limited set because it didn't matter if it was " mmm " or " um " , {comment} you know , versus " um " . So I just always wrote it as U M .
PhD B: OK .
Postdoc E: And " uh - huh " , you know , " UHUH . " I mean , like a s set of like five . But in any case  I didn't mark those .
PhD B: No .
PhD C: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: " Uh - huh " is " U H H U H . " H U H . "
Postdoc E: I 'd be happy with that . That 'd be fine . It 'd be good to have that in the in the conventions , what 's to be used .
PhD C: Huh - uh .
Grad A: I I did notice that there were some segments that had pauses on the beginning and end . We should probably mark areas that have no speakers as no speaker . Then , so question mark colon is fine for that .
Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a fine idea . That 's a fine idea .
Grad A: Just say silence .
Undergrad D: Well , what 's that mean ?
Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . Yeah .
Undergrad D: You mean re
Grad A: No one 's talking .
Undergrad D: ye s Oh . Silence all around .
Grad A: Yep .
Undergrad D: Yep .
PhD B: We have to mark those ?
Postdoc E: So I had PhD B: Don't they d can't we just leave them unmarked ?
Postdoc E: I d Well , you see , that 's possible too .
Grad A: Well , I wanna leave the marked I don't want them to be part of another utterance . So you just you need to have the boundary at the start and the end .
PhD B: OK . Sure .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Now that 's refinement that , uh , maybe it could be handled by part of the part of the script or something more PhD B: Uh , yeah , it seems like it seems like the , uh , tran the transcription problem would be very different if we had these automatic speaker detection turn placing things . Because suddenly I mean , I don't know , actually it sounds like there might be a problem putting it into the software if the software only handles two parallel channels . But assuming we can get around that somehow .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Well you were saying , I think it can read Grad A: It can read and write as many as you want , it 's just that it
Postdoc E: Uh - huh .
PhD B: But what if you wanna edit it ? Right ? I mean , the point is we 're gonna generate this transcript with five five tracks in it , but with no words . Someone 's gonna have to go in and type in the words . Um , and if there are five five people speaking at once ,
Grad A: Right , i it 's I didn't explain it well . If we use the the little the conventions that Jane has established , I have a script that will convert from that convention to their saved convention .
PhD B: Oh , yeah . Yes .
Postdoc E: Which allows five .
Grad A: Right .
Postdoc E: And it can be m edited after the fact ,
Grad A: Yes .
Postdoc E: can't it also ? But their but their format , if you wanted to in indicate the speakers right there instead of doing it through this indirect route , then i they a c window comes up and it only allows you to enter two speakers .
PhD B: Yeah . Right .
Undergrad D: But you 're saying that by the time you call it back in to from their saved format it opens up a window with window with five speakers ?
Postdoc E: So . But .
Grad A: Right .
Undergrad D: Oh ! That is sort of f
Grad A: It 's just user interface .
Undergrad D: They didn't quite go the whole Grad A: So i it 's Undergrad D: Yeah , they didn't go the whole route ,
Grad A: the the the whole saved form the saved format and the internal format , all that stuff , handles multiple speakers .
Undergrad D: did they ? They just Grad A: It 's just there 's no user interface for specifying multiple any more than two .
Undergrad D: Right . So your your script solves Doesn't it solve all our problems ,
Postdoc E: And that Grad A: Yep .
Undergrad D: cuz we 're always gonna wanna go through this preprocessing Grad A: Yep .
Undergrad D: uh , assuming it works .
Grad A: Yep .
Postdoc E: And that works nicely cuz this so quick to enter . So I wouldn't wanna do it through the interface anyway adding which worry who the speaker was .
Grad A: Yep .
Undergrad D: I see . Right . Good .
Postdoc E: And then , uh , let 's see what else . Oh , yes , I I wanted to have So sometimes a pers I uh in terms of like the continuity of thought for transcriptions , it 's i it isn't just words coming out , it 's like there 's some purpose for an utterance . And sometimes someone will do a backchannel in the middle of it but you wanna show that it 's continued at a later point . So I have I have a convention of putting like a dash arrow just to indicate that this person 's utterance continues . And then when it uh , catches back up again then there 's an arrow dash , and then you have the opposite direction to indicate continuation of ones own utterance versus , um , sometimes we had the situation which is you know , which you which you get in conversations , {comment} of someone continuing someone else 's utterance ,
PhD B: Mmm .
Postdoc E: and in that case I did a tilde arrow versus a arrow tilde , to indicate that it was continuation but it wasn't Oh , I guess I did equal arrow for the for the own for yourself things
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: cuz it 's the speakers the same . And then tilde arrow if it was a different if a different speaker , uh , con continuation .
PhD B: Mmm .
Grad A: Oh .
Postdoc E: But just , you know , the arrows showing continuation of a thought .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: And then you could track whether it was the same speaker or not by knowing you know , at the end of this unit you 'd know what happened later . And that was like this person continued
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc E: and you 'd be able to look for the continuation .
Grad A: So
PhD B: But the only time that becomes ambiguous is if you have two speakers . Like , if you  If you only have one person , if you only have one thought that 's continuing across a particular time boundary , you just need one arrow at each end , and if it 's picked up by a different speaker , it 's picked up by a different speaker . The time it becomes ambiguous if you have more than one speaker and that and they sort of swap . I guess if you have more than one thread going , then you  then you need to know whether they were swapped or not .
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm .
PhD C: How often does that happen do you think ?
Postdoc E: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Hopefully not very much .
Postdoc E: Yeah , I didn't use it very often .