Profile Information
- Affiliation
- Professor, Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Information and Communication Sciences, Sophia University
- Degree
- 工学士(上智大学)工学修士(上智大学)博士(工学)(上智大学)
- Contact information
- arai
sophia.ac.jp - Researcher number
- 80266072
- J-GLOBAL ID
- 200901064275514612
- researchmap Member ID
- 1000260131
Research and professional experience:
2008-present Professor at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences,
Sophia University
2006-2008 Professor at the Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering, Sophia University
2003-2004 Visiting Scientist at the Research Lab. of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA)
2000-2006 Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering, Sophia University
1998-2000 Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical
and Electronics Engineering, Sophia University
1997-1998 Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute
/ University of California at Berkeley
(Berkeley, California, USA)
1995-1996 Visiting Scientist at the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology
(Portland, Oregon, USA)
1994-1995 Research Associate at the Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, Sophia University
working with Professor Yoshida
1992-1993 Visiting Scientist at the Department of Computer Science
and Engineering, Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology
(Portland, Oregon, USA)
Short-term Visiting Scientist:
2000, August / 2001, August / 2002, August
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)
2001, March
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
The series of events involved in speech communication is called “Speech Chain,” and it is a basic concept in the speech and hearing sciences. We focus on research related to speech communication. The fields of this research are wide-ranging, and our interests include the following interdisciplinary areas:
- education in acoustics (e.g., physical models of human vocal tract),
- acoustic phonetics,
- speech and hearing sciences,
- speech production,
- speech analysis and speech synthesis,
- speech signal processing (e.g., speech enhancement),
- speech / language recognition and spoken language processing,
- speech perception and psychoacoustics,
- acoustics for speech disorders,
- speech processing for hearing impaired,
- speaker characteristics in speech, and
- real-time signal processing using DSP processors.
(Subject of research)
General Acoustics and Education in Acoustics (including vocal-tract models)
Acoustic Phonetics, Applied Linguistics
Speech Science (including speech production), Hearing Science (including speech perception), Cognitive Science
Speech Intelligibility, Speech Processing, Speech Emhancement
Assistive Technology related to Acoustics, Speech and Acoustics for Everybody
Speech Processing, Applications related to Acoustics
Speaker Characteristics of Speech
(Proposed theme of joint or funded research)
acoustic signal processing
speech signal processing
auditory signal processing
Research Interests
26Research Areas
9Research History
2-
Jan, 1997 - Mar, 1998
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Jun, 1995 - Dec, 1996
Awards
21-
Jun, 2025
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Mar, 2025
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Mar, 2025
Papers
612-
Speech Commun., 169, Jan, 2025 Peer-reviewed
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Speech Commun., 168, Dec, 2024 Peer-reviewed
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Proc. of INTERSPEECH, 987-988, Sep, 2024 Peer-reviewed
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Acoust. Sci. Tech., 45(5) 285-288, Sep, 2024 Peer-reviewed
Misc.
72-
The Journal of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of Japan, 48(1) 23-28, Feb, 2024
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日本音響学会研究発表会講演論文集(CD-ROM), 2024, 2024
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J. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., 78(4) 170-175, Apr, 2022
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 77(2) 149-154, Feb, 2021
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Acoustical Science and Technology, 41(1) 90-93, Jan, 2020 Peer-reviewedInvited
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 74(3) 134-135, May, 2018
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Acoustical Science and Technology, 39(2) 55-55, Feb, 2018
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 72(10) 653-661, Dec, 2016
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Acoustical Science and Technology, 37(5) 202-210, Sep, 2016 Invited
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Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, 20(2) 111-112, Aug, 2016
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Acoustical Science and Technology, 37(4) 143-147, Jul, 2016
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 72(3) 129-136, Mar, 2016
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 71(9) 459-460, Dec, 2015
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International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS), May, 2015
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Proc. of Psychonomic Society's Annual Meeting, Long Beach, Nov, 2014
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Proc. of AILA World Congress, Brisbane, Aug, 2014
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Proc. of Adventures in Speech Science, Tokyo, 9-10, Jul, 2014
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Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon), Tokyo, 165-165, Jul, 2014
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Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon), Tokyo, 71-71, Jul, 2014
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 70(5) 560-564, May, 2014
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 70(5) 309-314, May, 2014
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音声研究, 17(3) 96-96, Dec 30, 2013
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Acoustical Science and Technology, 34(3) 153-158, May, 2013
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The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 69(4) 184-190, Apr 1, 2013
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Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, 68(5) 232-233, Mar, 2012
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Forensic Speaker Recognition: Law Enforcement and Counter-Terrorism, 275-308, Jan 1, 2012
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音声研究, 15(3) 88-88, Dec 30, 2011
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日本音響学会研究発表会講演論文集(CD-ROM), 2011 ROMBUNNO.3-4-10, Mar 2, 2011
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IPSJ SIG Notes, 2008(123) 143-148, Dec 2, 2008We developed a physical model of the human vocal tract with a flexible velum using gel-type material. In this model, while the velum and pharyngeal wall were made of the gel-type material, the rest of the vocal-tract model including the nasal cavity was made of acrylic materials. We simulated four patterns of velopharyngeal closure (the Coronal, Circular, Circular with Passavant's ridge, and Sagittal patterns), by raising the velum by means of a string attached to the velic portion while the posterior and lateral pharyngeal walls were pushed inward from the outside with acrylic bars. By continuously changing the degree of velopharyngeal closure while pulling the string, we confirmed the change of the degree of hypernasality of a speech signal produced from the model, and we confirmed acoustic evidences such as a pole-zero pair on its spectrum.
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聴覚研究会資料, 38(2) 65-70, Mar 20, 2008
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日本音響学会研究発表会講演論文集(CD-ROM), 2008 ROMBUNNO.3-P-13, Mar 10, 2008
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Human Interface. Correspondences on human interface, 9(5) 23-28, Dec 5, 2007In this paper, we describe our work on developing a bilingual communication aid for a Japanese amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient. For this study, HTS toolkit was used to develop the system. First developed was a Japanese speech synthesis and two methods were attempted. The first used an acoustic model built from the recordings of the patient's read speech. The second used an acoustic model built from a voice converted to the patient's voice. The result of the perceptual experiment showed that the voice synthesized with the latter was perceived to have a closer voice quality to the...
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Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 4441 LNAI 83-92, Dec 1, 2007
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情報処理学会研究報告, 2006(136(SLP-64)) 49-54, Dec 21, 20064D-MRI imagings were obtained from four normal subjects (two males and two females) during speech production /impee/. Three kinds of the velopharyngeal (VP) closure patterns were observed. From the observation of the movements of soft palate, velopharyngeal port and Levator Veli Palatini (LVP) muscle during rest, /i/ and /p/ production on both mid-sagittal plane and coronal plane, it was found that the shape and the position of the levator veil palatini muscle (LVP muscle) were changed according to the motion of the soft palate. Maximum movement of the soft palate resulted in the rotation toward to the velopharyngeal port of the major axis of LVP muscle (type A movement). Medium movement of soft palate resulted in the medial translation of LVP muscle (type B movement). Two subjects having Coronal VP closure pattern showed type A movement during both vowel /i/ and consonant /p/ production. The subject who having Circular VP closure pattern showed type A movement during /p/ production and type B movement during /i/ production. The subject having Circular with Passavant's ridge pattern showed type B movement both /i/ and /p/ production.
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IEICE technical report, 105(685) 121-126, Mar 27, 2006Rhythm can be viewed in two different ways. Acoustic approach views rhythm as the alternating pattern of high and low intensity, which is regarded as a syllable. Phonemic approach attributes rhythm to the phonemic complexity of syllable structure and calculates rhythm based on the durations of consonant and vowel intervals. This paper investigates how well the acoustic approach fits to the phonemic approach. It tests two algorithms adopted in our previous studies, which estimate syllable centers from intensity contours based on the calculation of RMS and correlation with a cosine curve. The results are evaluated against the criteria of the phonemic approach. It concludes that the algorithms are valid, hence syllable shapes can be captured from the intensity contour.
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IEICE technical report, 105(685) 109-114, Mar 27, 2006In speaker identification by listening, the identification rates vary depending on the speech contents presented to the subjects. It is reported that the nasals are more effective than the oral sounds for identifying speakers. The present study investigates the availability of the nasal sounds in terms of syllable structures. The results showed that the coda nasals are highly effective, though onset consonants are also important. As to the place of articulation, alveolar consonants in onset positions were more effective than bilabials, and the nasals were better than their oral counterparts were.
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聴覚研究会資料 = Proceedings of the auditory research meeting, 36(1) 109-114, Mar 27, 2006
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聴覚研究会資料 = Proceedings of the auditory research meeting, 36(1) 127-130, Mar 27, 2006
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聴覚研究会資料 = Proceedings of the auditory research meeting, 36(1) 143-148, Mar 27, 2006
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IEICE technical report. Speech, 105(685) 49-53, Mar 20, 2006This study aimed to reduce ventilator noise in the speech signals of patients who use a ventilator. Two applications, spectral subtraction and adaptive filtering, were examined. For the first experiment, we employed a new technique based on spectral subtraction for ventilator noise reduction and then evaluated the result using mean opinion score. The results showed that the new technique was superior to the common approach of spectral subtraction in reducing ventilator noise. For the second experiment, an adaptive filter was used in a simulated environment to reduce ventilator noise and thr...
Books and Other Publications
24Presentations
245-
Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., Mar, 2025
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Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., Mar, 2025
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Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., Mar, 2025
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Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., Mar, 2025
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Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Jpn., Mar, 2025
Professional Memberships
12Works
11Research Projects
38-
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Apr, 2024 - Mar, 2027
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科学研究費助成事業, 日本学術振興会, Apr, 2024 - Mar, 2027
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Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Apr, 2021 - Mar, 2024
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科学研究費助成事業, 日本学術振興会, Apr, 2020 - Mar, 2024
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Research in Priority Areas, Sophia University, Apr, 2020 - Mar, 2023
Industrial Property Rights
10Academic Activities
1Social Activities
1Other
56-
Apr, 2006 - Jun, 2008英語によるプレゼンテーションを学ぶ講義の中で、自分のプレゼンテーションを客観的に学生に示すため、発表風景をビデオに収め、後で学生にそれを見て自己評価させるようにしている。また、同内容で2回目のプレゼンテーションを行わせ、改善する努力を促す工夫もしている。
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2003 - Jun, 2008音響教育に関する委員会の委員を務め、教育セッション(例えば2006年12月に行われた日米音響学会ジョイント会議における教育セッション)をオーガナイズするなど。
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2003 - Jun, 2008音響教育に関する委員会の委員を務め、教育セッション(例えば2004年4月に行われた国際音響学会議における教育セッション)をオーガナイズするなど。特に2005年からは委員長を仰せつかり、精力的に活動している(例えば、2006年10月に国立博物館にて科学教室を開催)。
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Apr, 2002 - Jun, 2008本学に赴任して以来、「Progress Report」と称して研究室の教育研究活動に関する報告書を作成し発行している。これにより、研究室の学生の意識の向上にも役立ち、効果を発揮している。