Christer Gobl

Associate Professor in Speech Science
Director of Teaching and Learning (Postgraduate)

Research Interests

Much of my research is concerned with speech acoustics and how speech production can be described and modelled within a source-filter framework. I am particularly interested in the nature of the human voice and its use in speech communication. A connected research strand explores signal processing techniques for developing voice analysis systems, to enable accurate and robust parameterisation of the speech signal. An applied dimension to this research is speech synthesis, and the generation of more varied and expressive voices, incorporating the range of voice quality modulations used in spoken communication. My research has to a great extent been carried out in the context of nationally and internationally funded projects, for details see http://people.tcd.ie/cegobl

Selected Publications

• Kane, J., Yanushevskaya, I., Ní Chasaide, and Gobl, C. (2012). Exploiting time and frequency domain measures for precise voice source parameterisation. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Shanghai, China.

• Yanushevskaya, I., Ní Chasaide, A. and Gobl, C. (2011).  Universal and language-specific perception of affect from voice. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Hong Kong, China, 2208-2211.

• Gobl, C. and Ní Chasaide, A. (2010). Voice source variation and its communicative functions. The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences (Second Edition), eds. William J. Hardcastle, John Laver and Fiona E. Gibbon, Oxford, Blackwell, 378-423.

• Kane, J.C. and Gobl, C. (2009).  Automatic parameterisation of the glottal waveform combining time and frequency domain measures. Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop: Models and analysis of vocal emissions for biomedical applications, Firenze University Press, Florence, Italy, 91-94.

• Gobl, C. (2008). Exploring voice source dynamics and its signalling function in speech: techniques and data. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Voice Physiology and Biomechanics ICVPB 2008, Tampere, Finland, 1-23.

• Gobl, C. (2006). Modelling aspiration noise during phonation using the LF voice source model, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, INTERSPEECH 2006, Pittsburgh, 965-968.

• Gobl, C. and Ní Chasaide, A. (2003).  Amplitude-based source parameters for measuring voice quality. Proceedings of the ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshop VOQUAL’03 on Voice Quality: Functions, Analysis and Synthesis, Geneva, 151-156.

• Gobl, C. and Ní Chasaide, A. (2003). The role of voice quality in communicating emotion, mood and attitude.  Speech Communication, 40, 189-212.

• Gobl, C. and Ní Chasaide, A. (2002).  Dynamics of the Glottal Source Signal: Implications for Naturalness in Speech Synthesis. In E. Keller, G. Bailly, A. Monaghan, J. Terken and M. Huckvale (Eds.) Improvements in Speech Synthesis, Wiley and Sons, 273-283.

• Gobl, C. and Ní Chasaide, A. (1999).  Techniques for analysing the voice source.  In W.J.  Hardcastle and N. Hewlett (Eds.) Coarticulation: Theory, Data and Techniques, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 300-320.

Teaching/Supervision

My course modules cover topics in the area of Speech Science/Processing. Currently, I teach and co-ordinate two undergraduate modules – Introduction to Speech Science; Speech Analysis and Synthesis – as part of the BA (Mod.) in Computer Science, Linguistics and a Language (CSLL)/Computer Science and Language (CSL), and three postgraduate modules – Speech Processing 1: Spectral Analysis; Speech Processing 2: Acoustic Modelling; Speech Production, Hearing and Perception – as part of the MPhil programme in Speech and Language Processing (SLP). I supervise MPhil dissertations and doctoral theses on various aspects of speech acoustics, voice analysis/modelling, speech signal processing and speech synthesis.

Christer Gobl on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Centre for Language and Communication Studies
Room 4038 Arts Building
Trinity College
Dublin 2.

Telephone: +353 1 896 2592
Fax: +353 1 896 2941
Email: cegobl@tcd.ie