Configuring TTS evaluation method based on unit cost outlier detection

Abstract

This paper presents a new analytic method that can be used for analyzing perceptual relevance of unit selection costs and/or their sub-components as well as for automated tuning of the unit selection weights. In particular, configuration options of the method are discussed in detail. A simple guidance on how to leverage the proposed method for the evaluation of a newly designed unit selection cost is also given in the paper. The advantage of using the proposed method is that different unit selection system configurations and tunings can automatically be evaluated without a need to conduct listening tests for each of them. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.