Adaptation of the humanoid robot to speech disfluency therapy

Abstract

The paper describes an application that allows to use a humanoid robot as a stutterer's assistant and therapist. Auditory and visual feedback has been used in the therapy with a humanoid robot. For this purpose, the common method of "echo" was modified. The modification is that the speaker hears delayed speech sounds uttered by the robot. The sounds of speech coming from an external microphone are captured and delayed by a computer and then, using User Datagram Protocol (UDP), sent to the robot's system and played in its speakers. This system allows the elimination of negative feedback and external sound field's noise. The effect of this therapy is enhanced by the fact that, in addition to the effect, relating to the action of the delayed feedback, the speaker has company during the difficult process of speaking. Visual feedback has been realized as changes in the robot's hand movements according to the shape of the speech signal envelope and possibility of controlling speech with a metronome effect.