Perception Group, Institut de la Communication Parlee, Grenoble, FR
ICP is one of the largest speech communication research laboratories in Europe. The "Perception Group" has been working in auditory processing for 20 years. Its general experience includes psychophysics, signal and information processing, biological modelling and neural networks, with international publications in each of these fields. Experience includes participation in the EC Science Project SC1.0044.C(H) 'Investigation of speech recognition based on a physiological model of the auditory system' with the University of Keele, and in the ESPRIT-BRA Project 3207, ACTS 'Auditory/Connectionist Techniques for Speech'. The relations between perception and production have been strongly reinforced through the EC ESPRIT-BR Project 6975, 'Speech MAPS - Mapping of Action and Perception in Speech', for which ICP was prime.
The Grenoble group will be mainly involved in the segregation of stationary signals, the development of neurophysiological modules and intermediary representations, the use of neural modelling for the elaboration of new recognition schemes and the fusion of audiovisual data. ICP will be involved in SPHEAR themes 1, 2 and 3. In theme 1, ICP will be mainly involved in the study of temporal correlations between several inputs, in relation to both speaker localisation, audiovisual correlations, and speaker counting. In theme 2, the group will mainly study the development of techniques for dealing with shared channels and coupling primitive representations, be they various representations inside one modality, or various different modalities in interaction. Finally, in theme 3, research will be focussed on the development of new techniques for schema-based recognition of degraded speech.
ICP has a long-standing link with Keele (beginning with a Science project in 1989-92), and this link has been strongly reinforced within the HCM Sphere project, with the common development of the so-called "Amplitude Modulation Maps" [Berthommier & Meyer, 1995, see below]. The links with all partners of the SPHEAR project are already strong, but there will be particular collaborations with Sheffield and IDIAP in the field of recognition of degraded speech, and with Bochum in what concerns localisation.
Other post-doctoral and doctoral workers at Grenoble are expected to be involved with a total of 19 months commitment.