Patent ID: 7555429

Claim:
A processor-implemented sound signal processing apparatus comprising: a sound computation mechanism configured to compute and output an indicia of a degree of vocally generated sound of a sound signal input thereto, said sound signal including a vocally generated sound and ambient sound; and a voice processor configured to characterize the input sound signal based on the indicia of a degree of vocally generated sound output by the sound computation mechanism, wherein the sound computation mechanism is configured to compute the indicia of a degree of vocally generated sound based on features in a wavelength direction of a waveform of the input sound signal; said sound computation mechanism including a degree of speech computation mechanism comprising: a half-wavelength increase and decrease repetition rate computation mechanism configured to compute an increase and a decrease in a repetition rate of half wavelengths of a waveform of the sound signal; a zero-cross rate computation mechanism configured to compute a rate of zero crossings of half wavelengths of the waveform of the sound signal; and a degree of vocally generated sound output mechanism configured to output the indicia of a degree of vocally generated sound on the basis of an output from the half-wavelength increase and decrease repetition rate computation mechanism and an output from the zero-cross rate computation mechanism.