Patent ID: 7231346

Claim:
A speech section detection apparatus comprising: preprocessing means for removing noise contained in a speech signal; speech pitch extracting means for extracting a speech pitch signal from the speech signal from which noise has been removed by the preprocessing means; gate signal generating means for generating a gate signal based on the speech pitch extracted by the speech pitch extracting means; and speech section signal generating means for generating a speech section signal based on the gate signal generated by the gate signal generating means; wherein the speech pitch extracting means comprises: subtraction processing means for applying subtraction processing for removing any speech signal smaller than a prescribed amplitude, to the speech signal from which noise has been removed by the preprocessing means; constant amplitude means for making essentially constant the amplitude of the speech signal to which the subtraction processing has been applied by the subtraction processing means; negative peak emphasizing means for detecting a positive peak and a negative peak subsequent to the positive peak from the speech signal the amplitude of which has been made essentially constant by the constant amplitude means, and for generating a speech signal the negative peak of which is emphasized by subtracting the positive peak from the negative peak; and differentiating means for detecting the speech signal the negative peak of which has been emphasized by the negative peak emphasizing means, and for differentiating the detected signal.