PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . We could uh , potentially {nonvocalsound} so .
Grad A: So .
Postdoc F: I also wanted to be sure I mean , I 've I 've seen the this this is called Praat , PRAAT , {nonvocalsound} which I guess means spee speech in Dutch or something .
Grad A: Yep .
PhD C: Yeah , but then I 'm not sure that 's the right thing for us .
Postdoc F: But In terms {nonvocalsound} of it being {nonvocalsound} Windows {nonvocalsound} versus Professor G: Yeah .
Grad A: No , no . Praat isn't Praat 's multi - platform .
Postdoc F: But I 'm just wondering , is ?
PhD C: No . No , Praat Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc F: Oh ! I see .
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Oh , I see . So Praat may not be PhD C: That 's not Praat . It 's called " trans transedit " I think .
Postdoc F: It 's a different one .
PhD C: The the , uh the tool from from Susanne .
Postdoc F: I see . Oh , I see . OK . OK . Alright .
Professor G: The other thing , uh , to keep in mind , uh I mean , we 've been very concerned to get all this rolling so that we would actually have data ,
Postdoc F: Mmm , yeah .
Professor G: but , um , I think our outside sponsor is actually gonna kick in
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: and ultimately that path will be smoothed out . So I don't know if we have a long - term need to do lots and lots of transcribing . I think we had a very quick need to get something out and we 'd like to be able to do some later because just it 's inter it 's interesting . But as far a you know , uh , with with any luck we 'll be able to wind down the larger project .
Grad A: Oh .
PhD B: But you s
Grad A: What our decision was is that we 'll go ahead with what we have with a not very fine time scale on the overlaps .
PhD C: Yeah .
Professor G: Right . Yeah .
Grad A: And and do what we can later to clean that up if we need to .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Right .
Postdoc F: And and I was just thinking that , um , if it were possible to bring that in , like , you know , this week , then {nonvocalsound} when they 're encoding the overlaps {nonvocalsound} it would be nice for them to be able to specify when you know , the start points and end points of overlaps .
Professor G: Uh - huh .
Postdoc F: uh Th - they 're {nonvocalsound} making really quick progress .
Professor G: Yeah . That 's great .
Postdoc F: And , um , so my my goal was w m my charge was to get eleven hours by the end of the month . And it 'll be I 'm I 'm I 'm clear that we 'll be able to do that .
Professor G: That 's great .
Grad A: And did you , uh , forward Morgan Brian 's thing ?
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: I sent {nonvocalsound} it to , um who did I send that to ? I sent it to a list and I thought {nonvocalsound} I sent it to {nonvocalsound} the {nonvocalsound} e to the local list .
PhD E: Meeting Recorder .
Grad A: Oh , you did ? OK . So you probably did get that .
Postdoc F: You saw that ? So Brian did tell {nonvocalsound} me that {nonvocalsound} in fact what you said , that , {nonvocalsound} uh that {nonvocalsound} our that they are making progress and that he 's going that {nonvocalsound} they 're {nonvocalsound} going he 's gonna check the f the output of the first transcription and and Professor G: I mean , basically it 's it 's all the difference in the world . I mean , basically he 's he 's on it now .
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Oh , that 's this is a new development .
Professor G: So so so this is so i it 'll happen .
Postdoc F: OK . Super . Super . OK . Great .
Professor G: Yeah . I mean , basically it 's just saying that one of our one of our best people is on it ,
Postdoc F: Yeah .
Professor G: you know , who just doesn't happen to be here anymore . Someone else pays him . So PhD B: But about the need for transcription ,
Postdoc F: Isn't that great ?
PhD B: I mean , don't we didn't we previously decide that the IBM transcripts would have to be checked anyway and possibly augmented ?
Professor G: So . Yeah .
Postdoc F: Yes . That 's true .
PhD B: So , I think having a good tool is worth something no matter what .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Yeah . S OK . That 's that 's a good point .
Grad A: Yeah , and Dave Gelbart did volunteer ,
Postdoc F: Good .
Grad A: and since he 's not here , I 'll repeat it to at least modify Transcriber , which , if we don't have something else that works , I think that 's a pretty good way of going .
PhD C: Mmm .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: And we discussed on some methods to do it . My approach originally , and I 've already hacked on it a little bit it was too slow because I was trying to display all the waveforms . But he pointed out that you don't really have to . I think that 's a good point .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: That if you just display the mix waveform and then have a user interface for editing the different channels , that 's perfectly sufficient .
Professor G: Hmm .
Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly . And just keep those {nonvocalsound} things separate . And and , um , Dan Ellis 's hack already allows them to be {nonvocalsound} able to display different {nonvocalsound} waveforms to clarify overlaps and things ,
Grad A: No . They can only display one ,
Postdoc F: so that 's already Grad A: but they can listen to different ones .
Postdoc F: Oh , yes , but Well , uh , yes , but {nonvocalsound} what I mean is that , uh , from the transcriber 's {nonvocalsound} perspective , uh , those {nonvocalsound} two functions are separate . And Dan Ellis 's hack handles the , um , choice {nonvocalsound} the ability to choose different waveforms from moment to moment .
Grad A: But only to listen to , not to look at .
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Um Grad A: The waveform you 're looking at doesn't change .
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: That 's true .
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Yeah , but {nonvocalsound} that 's that 's OK , cuz they 're they 're , you know , they 're focused on the ear anyway .
Grad A: Right .
Postdoc F: And then and then
Professor G: Hmm .
Postdoc F: the hack to preserve the overlaps {nonvocalsound} better would be one which creates different output files for each channel ,
Grad A: Right .
Postdoc F: which then {nonvocalsound} would also serve Liz 's request of having , you know , a single channel , separable , uh , cleanly , easily separable ,
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: uh , transcript tied to a single channel , uh , audio .
Professor G: Mm - hmm . Have , uh , folks from NIST been in contact with you ?
Postdoc F: Not directly . I 'm trying to think if if I could have gotten it over a list .
Professor G: OK .
Postdoc F: I don't I don't think so .
Professor G: OK . Well , holidays may have interrupted things , cuz in in in They seem to want to get absolutely clear on standards for transcription standards and so forth with with us .
Postdoc F: Oh ! This was from before December . Yeah .
Professor G: Right . Because they 're they 're presumably going to start recording next month .
Postdoc F: OK . OK .
Grad A: Oh , we should definitely get with them then ,
Professor G: So .
Grad A: and agree upon a format . Though I don't remember email on that . So was I not in the loop on that ?
Professor G: Um . Yeah , I don't think I mailed anybody . I just think I told them to contact Jane that , uh , if they had a Grad A: Oh , OK .
Postdoc F: That 's right .
Professor G: if , uh that that , uh , as the point person on it .
Grad A: Yeah , I think that 's right .
Professor G: But Grad A: Just , uh Professor G: So , yeah . Maybe I 'll , uh , ping them a little bit about it to get that straight .
Postdoc F: OK . I 'm keeping the conventions absolutely as simple {nonvocalsound} as possible .
Professor G: Yeah . So is it cuz with any luck there 'll actually be a a there 'll be collections at Columbia , collections at at UW I mean Dan Dan is very interested in doing some other things ,
Grad A: Right .
Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad A: Well , I think it 's important both for the notation and the machine representation to be the same .
Professor G: and collections at NIST . So Yeah .
Grad A: So .
Postdoc F: N there was also this , {nonvocalsound} uh , email from Dan regarding the speech - non nonspeech segmentation thing .
Grad A: Yep .
PhD C: Yeah .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: I don't know if , uh , uh , we wanna , uh and Dan Gel - and Dave Gelbart is interested in pursuing the aspect {nonvocalsound} of using amplitude {nonvocalsound} as a a a as a basis for the separation .
Grad A: Cross - correlation .
Professor G: Oh , yeah . He was talking he was talking I mean , uh , we he had Postdoc F: Cross
Professor G: Yeah , cross - correlation .
PhD C: Cross
Professor G: I had mentioned this a couple times before , the c the commercial devices that do , uh , uh , voice , uh you know , active miking ,
Postdoc F: Uh - huh .
Professor G: basically look at the amp at the energy at each of the mikes . And and you basically compare the energy here to some function of all of the mikes .
PhD C: Yeah .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: OK .
Professor G: So , by doing that , you know , rather than setting any , uh , absolute threshold , you actually can do pretty good , uh , selection of who who 's talking .
Postdoc F: OK .
Professor G: Uh And those those systems work very well , by the way , I mean , so people use them in panel discussions and so forth with sound reinforcement differing in in sort of ,
PhD D: Uh - huh .
Professor G: uh and , uh , those if Boy , the guy I knew who built them , built them like twenty twenty years ago ,
Grad A: Hmm .
Professor G: so they 're  it 's the the techniques work pretty well .
Postdoc F: Fantastic . Cuz there is one thing that we don't have right now and that is the automatic , um , channel identifier .
Professor G: So .
Postdoc F: That that , you know , that would g help in terms of encoding of overlaps .
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: The the transcribers would have less , uh , disentangling to do if that were available .
Professor G: Yeah . So I think , you know , basically you can look at some p you have to play around a little bit , uh , to figure out what the right statistic is ,
Postdoc F: But .
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: but you compare each microphone to some statistic based on the  on the overall PhD C: Yeah .
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: OK .
Professor G: Uh , and we also have these we have the advantage of having distant mikes too . So that , you cou yo
Grad A: Yeah , although the the using the close - talking I think would be much better . Wouldn't it ?
Postdoc F: Yeah .
Professor G: Um . I I don't know .
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor G: I just it 'd be If I was actually working on it , I 'd sit there and and play around with it , and and get a feeling for it . I mean , the the the , uh But , uh , you certainly wanna use the close - talking , as a at least .
Grad A: Right .
Professor G: I don't know if the other would would add some other helpful dimension or not .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . What what are the different , uh , classes to to code , uh , the the overlap , you will use ?
Postdoc F: Um , to code d
PhD D: What you you Postdoc F: so types of overlap ?
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Um , so {nonvocalsound} at a meeting that wasn't transcribed , we worked up a a typology .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: And , um PhD D: Look like , uh , you t you explaining in the blackboard ? The ? Yeah ? Yeah .
Postdoc F: Yes , exactly . That hasn't changed . So it {nonvocalsound} i the it 's basically a two - tiered structure where the first one is whether {nonvocalsound} the person who 's interrupted continues or not . And then below that there 're {nonvocalsound} subcategories , uh , that have more to do with , {nonvocalsound} you know , is it , uh , simply {nonvocalsound} backchannel
PhD D: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: or is {nonvocalsound} it , um , someone completing someone else 's thought , or is it someone in introducing a new thought .
Grad A: Right . And I hope that if we do a forced alignment with the close - talking mike , that will be enough to recover at least some of the time the time information of when the overlap occurred .
PhD D: Huh . Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Well , one would PhD D: We hope .
Grad A: Yeah . Who knows ?
Postdoc F: That 'd be that 'd be nice . I mean , I I I I 've PhD B: So who 's gonna do that ? Who 's gonna do forced alignment ?
Grad A: Well , u uh , IBM was going to . Um PhD B: Oh , OK .
PhD D: Oh .
Grad A: and I imagine they still plan to but but , you know , I haven't spoken with them about that recently .
PhD B: OK .
PhD D: Uh - huh .
Professor G: Well , uh , my suggestion now is is on all of these things to , uh , contact Brian .
Grad A: OK . I 'll do that .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: This is wonderful {nonvocalsound} to have a direct contact like that .
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: uh Well , th lemme ask {nonvocalsound} you this .
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: It occurs to me  one of my transcribers t {nonvocalsound} told {nonvocalsound} me today that she 'll {nonvocalsound} be finished with one meeting , um , by Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: well , she said tomorrow but then she said {nonvocalsound} you know , but {nonvocalsound} the , you know let 's let 's just , uh , say
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: maybe the day after just to be s on the safe side . I could send Brian the , {nonvocalsound} um the {nonvocalsound} transcript . I know these {nonvocalsound} are er , uh , I could send him that {nonvocalsound} if {nonvocalsound} it would be possible , {nonvocalsound} or a good idea or not , to {nonvocalsound} try {nonvocalsound} to do a s forced alignment on what we 're on the way we 're encoding overlaps now .
Professor G: Well , just talk to him about it .
Grad A: Yep .
Postdoc F: Good .
Professor G: I mean , you know , basically he 's he just studies , he 's a colleague , a friend , and ,
Postdoc F: Yeah !
Professor G: uh , they and and , you know , the the organization always did wanna help us .
Postdoc F: Super . Super .
Professor G: It was just a question of getting , you know , the right people connected in , who had the time .
Grad A: Right .
Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah .
Professor G: So , um , eh Grad A: Is he on the mailing list ? The Meeting Recorder mailing li ?
Postdoc F: Oh !
Grad A: We should add him .
Postdoc F: Yeah . I I I don't know for sure .
Professor G: Yeah .
PhD E: Did something happen , Morgan , that he got put on this , or was he already on it ,
Grad A: Add him .
PhD E: or ?
Professor G: No , I , eh , eh , p It it oc I h it 's Yeah , something happened . I don't know what .
PhD B: He asked for more work .
PhD E: Huh .
Professor G: But he 's on it now .
Postdoc F: That would be {nonvocalsound} like that 'd be like him . He 's great .
Professor G: Right . So , uh , where are we ? Maybe , uh , uh , brief Well , let 's why don't we talk about microphone issues ?
Postdoc F: Yeah . That 'd be great .
Professor G: That was that was a Grad A: Um , so one thing is that I did look on Sony 's for a replacement for the mikes  for the head m head - worn ones cuz they 're so uncomfortable . But I think I need someone who knows more about mikes than I do , because I couldn't find a single other model that seemed like it would fit the connector , which seems really unlikely to me . Does anyone , like , know stores or know about mikes who who would know the right questions to ask ?
Professor G: Oh , I probably would . I mean , my knowledge is twenty years out of date but some of it 's still the same .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: So Uh , so maybe we c we can take a look at that .
PhD E: You couldn't you couldn't find the right connector to go into these things ?
Grad A: Yep . When I looked , i they listed one microphone and that 's it
PhD E: Huh !
Grad A: as having that type of connector . But my guess is that Sony maybe uses a different number for their connector than everyone else does . And and so Professor G: Mm - hmm . Well , let 's look at it together
Grad A: it seems it seems really unlikely to me that there 's only one .
Professor G: and Postdoc F: And there 's no adaptor for it ?
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Seems like there 'd be a OK .
Grad A: As I said , who knows ?
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Who who are we buying these from ?
Grad A: Um ,
Professor G: That 'd be
Grad A: I have it downstairs . I don't remember off the top of my head .
Professor G: Yeah . OK . Yeah . We we can try and look at that together .
Grad A: And then , uh just in terms of how you wear them I mean , I had thought about this before . I mean , when when when you use a product like DragonDictate , they have a very extensive description about how to wear the microphone and so on .
Postdoc F: Oh .
Grad A: But I felt that in a real situation we were very seldom gonna get people to really do it and maybe it wasn't worth concentrating on . But Professor G: Well , I think that that 's that 's a good back - off position . That 's what I was saying earlier , th that , you know , we are gonna get some recordings that are imperfect and , hey , that 's life . But I I think that it it doesn't hurt , uh , the naturalness of the situation to try to have people wear the microphones properly , if possible ,
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: because , um , the natural situation is really what we have with the microphones on the table .
Grad A: Oh . That 's true .
Professor G: I mean , I think , you know , in the target applications that we 're talking about , people aren't gonna be wearing head - mounted mikes anyway .
PhD C: Yeah .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: So this is just for u these head - mounted mikes are just for use with research .
Grad A: Mm - hmm .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: And , uh , it 's gonna make You know , if if An - Andreas plays around with language modeling , he 's not gonna be m wanna be messed up by people breathing into the microphone .
Grad A: Right .
Professor G: So it 's it 's , uh , uh Grad A: Well , I 'll dig through the documentation to DragonDictate and ste s see if they still have the little form .
Professor G: But it does happen .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: Right ? I mean , and any PhD B: It 's interesting , uh , I talked to some IBM guys , uh , last January , I think , I was there . And so people who were working on the on their ViaVoice dictation product .
Professor G: Yeah .
PhD B: And they said , uh , the breathing is really a a terrible problem for them , to to not recognize breathing as speech .
Postdoc F: Wow .
PhD B: So , anything to reduce breathing is is is a good thing .
Professor G: Yeah .
Grad A: Well , that 's the It seemed to me when I was using Dragon that it was really microphone placement helped an in , uh an enormous amount .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: So you want it enough to the side so that when you exhale through your nose , it doesn't the wind doesn't hit the mike .
PhD B: Right . Mm - hmm .
Grad A: And then , uh Everyone 's adjusting their microphones , of course . And then just close enough so that you get good volume . So you know , wearing it right about here seems to be about the right way to do it .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Is Uh - huh .
Professor G: I remember when I was when I I I I used , uh , um , a prominent laboratory 's , uh , uh , speech recognizer about , uh This was , boy , this was a while ago , this was about twelve twelve years ago or something . And , um , they were they were perturbed with me because I was breathing in instead of breathing out . And they had models for they  they had Markov models for br breathing out but they didn't have them for breathing in .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: Uh Postdoc F: That 's interesting . Well , what I wondered is whether it 's possible to have  to maybe use the display at the beginning
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc F: to be able to to judge how how correctly I mean , have someone do some routine whatever , and and then see if when they 're breathing it 's showing .
Grad A: I mean , when when it 's on , you can see it .
Postdoc F: I don't know if the if it 's Professor G: I Grad A: You can definitely see it .
Postdoc F: Can you see the breathing ?
Grad A: Absolutely .
Postdoc F: Cuz I Grad A: Absolutely .
Postdoc F: Oh .
Professor G: Yeah .
Grad A: And so , you know , I 've I 've sat here and watched sometimes the breathing ,
Professor G: I
Grad A: and the bar going up and down , and I 'm thinking , I could say something , but
Professor G: I mean , I think Grad A: I don't want to make people self - conscious . Stop breathing !
Professor G: It it 's going to be imperfect .
Postdoc F: Yeah . Uh - huh .
Professor G: You 're not gonna get it perfect . And you can do some , uh , you know , first - order thing about it , which is to have people move it , uh , uh , a away from being just directly in front of the middle
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Good .
Professor G: but not too far away .
Postdoc F: Yeah , i
Professor G: And then , you know , I think there 's not much Because you can't al you know , interfere w you can't fine tune the meeting that much , I think .
Grad A: Right .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: It 's sort of Postdoc F: That 's true . It just seems like i if something l simple like that can be tweaked and the quality goes , you know , uh , dramatically up , then it might be worth doing .
Grad A: Yep . And then also the position of the mike also . If it 's more directly , you 'll get better volume . So so , like , yours is pretty far down below your mouth . Yeah .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: But Mm - hmm . My my feedback from the transcribers is he is always close to crystal clear and and just fan fantastic to PhD C: Yeah .
PhD D: Mmm , yeah .
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: I don't know why that is .
Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you Yeah , of course . You 're you 're also uh , your volume is is greater . But but still , I mean , they they say Grad A: I 've been eating a lot .
Postdoc F: I it makes their their job extremely easy .
Professor G: Uh .
Postdoc F: Yeah .
Professor G: And then there 's mass .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Anyway .
Postdoc F: I could say something about about the Well , I don't know what you wanna do . Yeah .
Professor G: About what ?
Postdoc F: About the transcribers or anything or ? I don't know .
Professor G: Well , the other PhD B: But , uh , just to to , um Professor G: why don't we do that ?
PhD B: One more remark , uh , concerning the SRI recognizer . Um . It is useful to transcribe and then ultimately train models for things like breath , and also laughter is very , very frequent and important to  to model .
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: So ,
Grad A: So ,
PhD B: if you can in your transcripts mark Grad A: mark them ?
PhD B: mark very audible breaths and laughter especially ,
PhD C: Mmm .
PhD B: um Postdoc F: They are .
PhD B: OK .
Postdoc F: They 're putting Eh , so in curly brackets they put " inhale " or " breath " .
Grad A: Oh , great .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: It they and then in curly brackets they say " laughter " . Now they 're  they 're not being awfully precise , uh , m So they 're two types of laughter that are not being distinguished .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: One is when sometimes s someone will start laughing when they 're in the middle of a sentence .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc F: And and then the other one is when they finish the sentence and then they laugh . So , um , I I did s I did some double checking to look through I mean , you 'd need to have extra  e extra complications , like time tags indicating the beginning and ending of  of the laughing through the utterance .
PhD B: It 's not so I don't think it 's , um Postdoc F: And that and what they 're doing is in both cases just saying " curly brackets laughing " a after the unit .
PhD B: As as long as there is an indication that there was laughter somewhere between two words I think that 's sufficient ,
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Good . Oh !
Grad A: Against they could do forced alignment .
Postdoc F: OK .
PhD B: because actually the recognition of laughter once you kn um you know , is pretty good .
PhD C: Yeah .
PhD B: So as long as you can stick a you know , a t a tag in there that that indicates that there was laughter ,
Grad A: Oh , I didn't know that .
PhD B: that would probably be , uh , sufficient to train models .
Postdoc F: OK .
Grad A: That would be a really interesting prosodic feature ,
Postdoc F: Then PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: And let me ask y and I gotta ask you one thing about that .
Grad A: when PhD B: Hmm .
Postdoc F: So , um , if they laugh between two words , you you 'd get it in between the two words .
PhD B: Mm - hmm . Right .
Postdoc F: But if they laugh across three or four words you you get it after those four words . Does that matter ?
PhD D: Yeah .
PhD B: Well , the thing that you is hard to deal with is whe when they speak while laughing . Um , and that 's , uh I don't think that we can do very well with that .
Grad A: Right .
PhD B: So PhD D: Yeah .
PhD B: But , um , that 's not as frequent as just laughing between speaking ,
Postdoc F: OK .
Grad A: So are do you treat breath and laughter as phonetically , or as word models , or what ?
PhD B: so Professor G: Uh is it ?
PhD D: Huh . I I think it 's frequent in in the meeting .
Postdoc F: I think he 's right . Yeah .
PhD B: We tried both . Uh , currently , um , we use special words . There was a there 's actually a word for uh , it 's not just breathing but all kinds of mouth Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mouth stuff ?
PhD B: uh , mouth mouth stuff . And then laughter is a is a special word .
Grad A: How would we do that with the hybrid system ?
Professor G: Same thing .
Grad A: So train a phone in the neural net ?
PhD B: Same thing ? Yeah . Yeah . You ha Oh . And each of these words has a dedicated phone .
Professor G: No Grad A: Oh , it does ?
PhD B: So the so the the mouth noise , uh , word has just a single phone , um , that is for that .
Grad A: Right . So in the hybrid system we could train the net with a laughter phone and a breath sound phone .
Professor G: Yeah .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah .
Professor G: I mean , it 's it 's it 's always the same thing .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: Right ? I mean , you could you could say well , let we now think that laughter should have three sub sub sub - units in the the three states , uh different states .
PhD C: Yeah .
Professor G: And then you would have three I mean , you know , eh , eh , it 's u
Grad A: Do whatever you want .
PhD B: And the the pronun the pronunciations the pronunciations are l are somewhat non - standard .
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: Yeah , yeah .
PhD D: No .
PhD B: They actually are uh , it 's just a single , s uh , you know , a single phone in the pronunciation , but it has a self - loop on it , so it can Grad A: To go on forever ?
PhD B: r can go on forever .
Grad A: And how do you handle it in the language model ?
PhD B: It 's just a it 's just a word .
Grad A: It 's just a word in the language model .
PhD B: We train it like any other word .
Grad A: Cool .
PhD B: Yeah . We also tried , um , absorbing these uh , both laughter and and actually also noise , and , um PhD D: Yeah .
PhD B: Yes . OK . Anyway . We also tried absorbing that into the pause model I mean , the the the model that that matches the stuff between words .
Professor G: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: And , um , it didn't work as well . So .
Grad A: Huh . OK .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Grad A: Can you hand me your digit form ?
PhD B: Sorry .
Grad A: I just wanna mark that you did not read digits .
Professor G: OK . Say hi for me .
Postdoc F: Good . You you did get me to thinking about I I 'm not really sure which is more frequent , whether f f laughing I think it may be an individual thing . Some people are more prone to laughing when they 're speaking .
Professor G: Yeah .
Grad A: I was noticing that with Dan in the one that we , uh we hand tran hand - segmented ,
Professor G: Yeah . I think Postdoc F: But I can't PhD D: Yeah .
Grad A: that th he has these little chuckles as he talks .
Postdoc F: Yeah . OK .
Professor G: I 'm sure it 's very individual . And and one thing that c that we 're not doing , of course , is we 're not claiming to , uh , get be getting a representation of mankind in these recordings . We have this very , very tiny sample of of PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Yeah .
PhD D: Yeah .
Grad A: Speech researchers ?
Professor G: Uh , yeah . And  Yeah , r right .
PhD D: Speech research .
Professor G: So , uh , who knows . Uh Yeah . Why don why don't we just since we 're on this vein , why don't we just continue with , uh , what you were gonna say about the transcriptions
Postdoc F: OK .
Professor G: and ?
Postdoc F: Um , um , the I I 'm really very for I 'm extremely fortunate with the people who , uh , applied and who are transcribing for us . They are , um , um , uh really perceptive and very , um and I 'm not just saying that cuz they might be hearing this .
Grad A: Cuz they 're gonna be transcribing it in a few days .
Postdoc F: No , they 're super . They 're the they very quick .
PhD E: OK . Turn the mikes off and let 's talk .
Postdoc F: Yeah , I know . I am I 'm serious . They 're just super . So I , um , e you know , I I brought them in and , um , trained them in pairs because I think people can raise questions Grad A: That 's a good idea .
Postdoc F: you know , i i the they think about different things and they think of different and um , I trained them to , uh , f on about a minute or two of the one that was already transcribed . This also gives me a sense of You know , I can I can use that later , with reference to inter - coder reliability kind of issues . But the main thing was to get them used to the conventions and , you know , the idea of the th th the size of the unit versus how long it takes to play it back so these th sort of calibration issues . And then , um , I just set them loose and they 're they all have e a already background in using computers . They 're , um they 're trained in linguistics .
Grad A: Good . Oh , no . Is that good or bad ?
Postdoc F: They got Professor G: Uh - huh .
Postdoc F: Well , they they 're very perce they 'll So one of them said " well , you know , he really said " n " , not really " and " ,
PhD D: Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc F: so what  what should I do with that ? "
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc F: And I said , " well for our purposes ,
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: I do have a convention . If it 's an a noncanonical p " That one , I think we you know , with Eric 's work , I sort of figure we we can just treat that as a variant . But I told them if if there 's an obvious speech error , uh , like I said in one thing ,
Professor G: OK . Yes .
Postdoc F: and I gave my my example , like I said , " microfon " in instead of " microphone " . Didn't bother I knew it when I said it . I remember s thinking " oh , that 's not correctly pronounced " . But it but I thought it 's not worth fixing cuz often when you 're speaking everybody knows what what you mean .
Grad A: You 'll self - repair . Yeah .
PhD C: Yeah .
Postdoc F: But I have a convention that if it 's obviously a noncanonical pronunciation a speech error with you know , wi within the realm of resolution that you can tell in this native English American English speaker , you know that I didn't mean to say " microfon . " Then you 'd put a little tick at the beginning of the word ,
Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: and that just signals that , um , this is not standard , and then in curly brackets " pron {nonvocalsound} error " . And , um , and other than that , it 's w word level . But , you know , the fact that they noticed , you know , the " nnn " . " He said " nnn " , not " and " . What shall I do with that ? " I mean , they 're very perceptive . And and s several of them are trained in IPA . C they really could do phonetic transcription if if we wanted them to .
Professor G: Mm - hmm . Right . Well  Well , you know , it might be something we 'd wanna do with some , uh , s small subset of the whole thing .
Grad A: Hmm . Where were they when we needed them ?
Postdoc F: I think Professor G: We certainly wouldn't wanna do it with everything .
Postdoc F: And I 'm also thinking these people are a terrific pool . I mean , if , uh so I I told them that , um , we don't know if this will continue past the end of the month
Professor G: Uh - huh .
Postdoc F: and I also m I think they know that the data p source is limited and I may not be able to keep them employed till the end of the month even , although I hope to .
Professor G: The other thing we could do , actually , uh , is , uh , use them for a more detailed analysis of the overlaps .
Postdoc F: And Oh , that 'd be so super . They would be so s so terrific .
Grad A: I mean , this was something that we were talking about .
Professor G: Right ?
Grad A: We could get a very detailed overlap if they were willing to transcribe each meeting four or five times . Right ? One for each participant . So they could by hand Professor G: Well , that 's one way to do it .
Grad A: Yeah .
Professor G: But I 've been saying the other thing is just go through it for the overlaps .
Grad A: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , that 's right .
Professor G: Right ?
Postdoc F: And with the right in interface Professor G: Given that y and and do so instead of doing phonetic , uh , uh , transcription for the whole thing ,
PhD D: Yeah .
Professor G: which we know from the Steve 's experience with the Switchboard transcription is , you know , very , very time - consuming . And  and you know , it took them I don't know how many months to do to get four hours . And so that hasn't been really our focus . Uh , we can consider it . But , I mean , the other thing is since we 've been spending so much time thinking about overlaps is is maybe get a much more detailed analysis of the overlaps .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: But anyway , I 'm I 'm open to c our consideration .
Postdoc F: That 'd be great .
PhD D: Hmm .
Professor G: I I don't wanna say that by fiat .
Postdoc F: Yeah .
Professor G: I 'm open to every consideration of what are some other kinds of detailed analysis that would be most useful .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm .
Professor G: And , uh , uh ,
PhD D: Hmm .
Professor G: I I I think this year we we actually , uh , can do it .
Postdoc F: Oh , wonderful .
Professor G: It 's a we have we have due to @ @ {comment} variations in funding we have we seem to be doing , uh , very well on m money for this this year , and next year we may have have much less .
Grad A: Is you mean two thousand one ?
Professor G: So I don't wanna hire a Grad A: Calendar year or ?
Professor G: Uh , I mean , calendar year two thousand one .
Grad A: OK .
Professor G: Yeah . So it 's uh , it 's we don't wanna hire a bunch of people , a long - term staff ,
Grad A: Full - time . Yeah .
Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah .
Professor G: because the the funding that we 've gotten is sort of a big chunk for this year . But having temporary people doing some specific thing that we need is actually a perfect match to that kind of , uh , funding .
Postdoc F: Wonderful .
PhD D: Yeah .
Postdoc F: And then school will start in in the sixt on the sixteenth .
Professor G: So .
Postdoc F: Some of them will have to cut back their hours at that point .
Professor G: Yeah .
PhD E: Are they working full - time now , or ?
Postdoc F: But {nonvocalsound} Some of them are .
Grad A: Wow .
Postdoc F: Yeah . Well , why do I wouldn't say forty - hour weeks . No . But what I mean is Oh , I shouldn't say it that way because {nonvocalsound} that does sound like forty - hour weeks . No . I th I I would say they 're probably {nonvocalsound} they don't have o they don't have other things that are taking away their time .
Grad A: I don't see how someone could do forty hours a week on transcription .
PhD E: Hmm .
Postdoc F: But {nonvocalsound} it 's you can't .
Professor G: Yeah . Yeah .
Postdoc F: No . You 're right . It 's i it would be too taxing . But , um , they 're putting {nonvocalsound} in a lot of Professor G: Yeah .
Postdoc F: And and I checked them over .
Professor G: I Postdoc F: I I I haven't checked them all , but just spot - checking . They 're fantastic .
Grad A: I think it would be Professor G: I remember when we were transcribing BeRP , uh , uh , uh , Ron Kay , uh , volunteered to to do some of that . And , he was the first first stuff he did was transcribing Chuck . And he 's saying " You you know , I always thought Chuck spoke really well . "
Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you know , and I also thought , y Liz has this , eh , you know , and I do also , this this interest in the types of overlaps that are involved . These people would be {nonvocalsound} great choices for doing coding of that type if we wanted ,
Grad A: We 'd have to mark them .