Communication acoustics

Introduction

Ville Pulkki and Matti Karjalainen

Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics
Aalto University, Finland

February 20, 2015

Transmission of information by sound

squawk chirp chirp

brr

toot! quack!

swooh
wind sound clip clop
swooh
rustle

The sound events shown bring information to the subject about the
surroundings
Speech communication

Speech communication in different situations between subjects or from

the presenters to the audience. The acoustic waves carry the information
either directly from the presenter to the listener or through an audio
system.
Music – communication by sound

Musical communication with electronic sound reinforcement. The

audience responds acoustically to the band by clapping hands and with
their voices.
Acoustic communication over distance

coding coding

decoding decoding

Communication through a technical transmission channel.

telephone / radio
phonograph / record player
digital audio
speech technologies
Man-machine communication over voice

When does the

bus leave?

In five minutes. It’s 200

meters to the bus stop,
speech you should hurry!
artificial recognition
intelligence
speech
synthesis

automated telephone service

voice control system of devices
automated public address
Fields involved in acoustic communication chan-
nels

AUDIO/SPEECH PSYCHOACOUSTICS
TECHNOLOGY

analysis
processing
synthesis

SIGNAL
PROCESSING
ROOM ACOUSTICS
References

These slides follow corresponding chapter in: Pulkki, V. and Karjalainen, M. Communication Acoustics:
An Introduction to Speech, Audio and Psychoacoustics. John Wiley & Sons, 2015, where also a more
complete list of references can be found.

Introduction 8/8
Pulkki February 20, 2015
Dept Signal Processing and Acoustics