Speech Jammer ?

A

andrew gissing

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Jan 11, 2011
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Perth Western Australia
www.stylusra.com.au
A friend sent me this link: [1202.6106] SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with Delayed Auditory Feedback

There is a pdf article there to download and a link to a youtube video which purports to show the device in action.

In short, microphone picks up speech of subject, delays it by an amount of time, then outputs to a speaker aimed at the subject.

The delay time is based on speed of sound, distance to subject, and the desired time for subject to hear the result. This is typically up to a few hundred milliseconds.

The premise being that the subject hears the reflected speech and causes them to stumble/ stutter because the sound is arriving later than when their ears expect to hear it.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a real article or some kind of academic joke.

As live sound guys we all know about delays ranging from 80 to 250 milliseconds; we know what that sounds like and musicians work with that frequently with slap back echos off nearby surfaces, intentional vocal delays like slapback or 1/4 note and so on.

If the premise of the article is true, then is singing different than speaking ? Are sound guys and muso's more switched on / can factor this in when hearing ourselves delayed ?

I'm also thinking back to bad telephone lines where I hear what i'm saying with a delay. That didn't cause me to stutter.

Thoughts ?



andrew
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

Just try taking a mic onto the middle of a football field and talk into it. It is VERY hard to do-especially if the signal coming back to you is at any decent level. Unless of course you talk very slowly with lots of space (time) between words.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

andrew gissing said:
A friend sent me this link: [1202.6106] SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with Delayed Auditory Feedback

There is a pdf article there to download and a link to a youtube video which purports to show the device in action.

In short, microphone picks up speech of subject, delays it by an amount of time, then outputs to a speaker aimed at the subject.

The delay time is based on speed of sound, distance to subject, and the desired time for subject to hear the result. This is typically up to a few hundred milliseconds.

The premise being that the subject hears the reflected speech and causes them to stumble/ stutter because the sound is arriving later than when their ears expect to hear it.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a real article or some kind of academic joke.
Click to expand...
Real but not very practical...
As live sound guys we all know about delays ranging from 80 to 250 milliseconds; we know what that sounds like and musicians work with that frequently with slap back echos off nearby surfaces, intentional vocal delays like slapback or 1/4 note and so on.
Click to expand...
Slap on that time frame to cause stuttering needs to be 100mSec plus, so not from nearby reflections.

I recall a dealer meeting in a huge hotel ballroom in Anaheim (probably a couple ballrooms opened up to make one large room) where there was a slap off the back wall in the right time range to mess up speaking.
If the premise of the article is true, then is singing different than speaking ? Are sound guys and muso's more switched on / can factor this in when hearing ourselves delayed ?
Click to expand...
Indeed, singing is different. Recall how artist Mel Tillis can sing fluently but can't talk without stuttering (it is not an act). Speech is more percussive with sudden starts and stops. Singing is more held notes, so a delayed repeat of a note start is masked by the held note.
I'm also thinking back to bad telephone lines where I hear what i'm saying with a delay. That didn't cause me to stutter.

Thoughts ?



andrew
Click to expand...

It differs from person to person (like stuttering), and I haven't experienced long telephone delays in several decades.

I know this is real, I sold a delay device back in the '80s used for speech therapy (with mic, headphones, and up to 300mSec of delay. A stutterer can practice speaking fluently with DAF (Delayed Auditory Feedabck). They begin with long delay, and gradually reduce it to no delay.

This doesn't have much practical application for music, but for talking heads like on TV, you could really mess up the talent by adding a delayed version of themselves in their earpiece. :-)

To shut up talkers in a crowd, you would end up making a lot of noise too...

I recall a similar idea, when I had a problem with noisy frogs around a pond, making a racket. I wanted to record the frog call, pitch shift it lower so it sounded like a much bigger frog and play it back twice as loud... Never got around to trying that but i bet it would mess with the frogs tiny little minds.


JR
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

Ivan Beaver said:
Just try taking a mic onto the middle of a football field and talk into it. It is VERY hard to do-especially if the signal coming back to you is at any decent level. Unless of course you talk very slowly with lots of space (time) between words.
Click to expand...

+1 It really works, and makes announcements from FOH a bear... always keep a set of cans for that purpose, to drown out the speakers. I find the effect begins around 80ms and gets especially strong after 100, tapering off about 300 as your brain starts to filter the arrivals as noise.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

Fun/easy way to experience this. Call yourself from a cellphone, but one phone up to each ear and try to sing "Im A Little Tea-pot" in a steady rhythm.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

I remember back in the 70s hearing about a device that would do the same thing, it was used to play back to people claiming to be deaf.
If they couldn't talk while the device was on, they were hearing it.

Another thing about singing with delay, it is expected to hear the original signal, and then the delay.
Try doing it without the original signal.

When I do announcements from mix position, my speech slows down a lot, even from as little as 60' (20M) out because of the distraction.

Jack
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

The SpeechJammer was featured at this year's IgNobel Awards by it's designer in a demonstration. This year I had Jason Raboin and Pete Wildermuth work the show. I'll copy Jason on this post, I'm sure he'll chime in when he gets a chance.

Best,
David
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

andrew gissing said:
I'm trying to figure out if this is a real article or some kind of academic joke.
Click to expand...
Judging from the tone and style of writing of the article, I think it is the latter.
Even so, it could have interesting applications for political talk shows on TV, with the moderator having access to "the button" and invoking the effect only at chosen opportune moments and only for selected guests. Another application that comes to mind could be for those special calls from telemarketers and other hostile entities that assault us by telephone. Kind of like mosquito repellent.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

George Friedman-Jimenez said:
Judging from the tone and style of writing of the article, I think it is the latter.
Even so, it could have interesting applications for political talk shows on TV, with the moderator having access to "the button" and invoking the effect only at chosen opportune moments and only for selected guests. Another application that comes to mind could be for those special calls from telemarketers and other hostile entities that assault us by telephone. Kind of like mosquito repellent.
Click to expand...

That is a great idea, a nuisance telephone call would be a perfect application. Just delay the telemarketer's voice and send it back at them so they can't finish a sentence..

JR.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

DIY might work but if it were sold commercially, the telemarketers would learn quickly to hold the earpiece away from their ear when talking. My cell phone does produce a similar echo all by itself sometimes, although longer than 300 ms and not loud enough to disrupt my conversations completely.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

John Roberts said:
That is a great idea, a nuisance telephone call would be a perfect application. Just delay the telemarketer's voice and send it back at them so they can't finish a sentence..

JR.
Click to expand...
I like that idea :) Maybe add a little pitch shift-but I am not sure what effect that would have-but I imagine a higher freq would get really annoying real quick.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

George Friedman-Jimenez said:
DIY might work but if it were sold commercially, the telemarketers would learn quickly to hold the earpiece away from their ear when talking. My cell phone does produce a similar echo all by itself sometimes, although longer than 300 ms and not loud enough to disrupt my conversations completely.
Click to expand...

This usually happens when the person on the other end has the phone so that the mouthpiece can hear the earpiece.
The sound feeds back into the phone, and the delay is caused by the times to the satellites and back.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

A couple of weeks ago I mixed FOH for the Ig Nobel awards at Harvard University. Basically they get real Nobel award winners to give awards to people who have invented useless inventions or have done studies that don't need to be done. One of the awards was given to the inventors of the speech jammer. It didn't work. They couldn't really get it going, and what did come out of the speaker was so distorted it might distract you a bit, but would not stop you from being able to speak. The producer of the event was so intent on giving the audience a demonstration of the device that I ended up using a 250ms delay in the console to fake it.

You can watch it here starting at 37 minutes in. Unfortunately the recording guys didn't do the delay trick.

The 22nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony - YouTube
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

OK, "Ig" nobel , so a joke award, while the DAF mechanism is real, just impractical in that application.

The patent office is full of similar efforts. Even if they kind of work, (yawn) so what....

I agree the telemarketer would easily adapt... in fact many tele-calls are just recordings so hard to make memorex stutter.

JR
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

John Roberts said:
OK, "Ig" nobel , so a joke award, while the DAF mechanism is real, just impractical in that application.

The patent office is full of similar efforts. Even if they kind of work, (yawn) so what....

I agree the telemarketer would easily adapt... in fact many tele-calls are just recordings so hard to make memorex stutter.

JR
Click to expand...

Special information tones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have sometimes pondered the consequences of putting these tones on my answering machine, immediately preceding my usual outgoing message, but just haven't sunk to the right level of boredom to do it. Voice callers would just hear some noise and then my message, no difference. Memorex callers would get programmed not to waste time calling me back. In theory at least.
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

Jeff Babcock said:
Yep. I have worked with an artist on several occasions who has an extreme stuttering problem, yet is a very capable front-man for a rock band - the audience has no idea. It's quite interesting to observe.
Click to expand...

Probably not this guy, although he is from your neck of the woods.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/The+Story+From+Here/ID/2295599522/

His theory (and one I've heard before) is that speech uses the left side of the brain, singing (and apparently rapping) uses the right side. The dominant side of our brain is usually the opposite of what "handedness" we are. This particular guy doesn't even need to sing. Simply speaking with a fake accent is enough for him to speak without the stutter. I wonder if stutterers tend to be left-handed?

GTD
 
Re: Speech Jammer ?

When I worked at the rock radio station (WIXY-1260) we would sometimes tape delay the DJ's headphones (while some DJ's listen real, real loud) none of them could carry on.

I recall reads about some insurance cases using this as a test for deafness.
 
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