LOLOL: Laugh Out Loud On Laptop

Jieun Oh, and Ge Wang

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

Significant progress in the domains of speech- and singing-synthesis has enhanced communicative potential of machines. To make computers more vocallyexpressive, however, we need a deeper understanding of how nonlinguistic social signals are patterned and perceived. In this paper, we focus on laughter expressions: how a phrase of vocalized notes that we call ''laughter'' may bemodeled and performed to implicate nuanced meaning imbued in the acousticsignal. In designing our model, we emphasize (1) using high-level descriptors as control parameters, (2) enabling real-time performable laughter, and (3) prioritizing expressiveness over realism. We present an interactive systemimplemented in ChucK that allows users to systematically play with the musicalingredients of laughter. A crowd sourced study on the perception of synthesized laughter showed that our model is capable of generating a range of laughter types, suggesting an exciting potential for expressive laughter synthesis.

Citation:

Jieun Oh, and Ge Wang. 2013. LOLOL: Laugh Out Loud On Laptop. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1178626

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{Oh2013,
 abstract = {Significant progress in the domains of speech- and singing-synthesis has enhanced communicative potential of machines. To make computers more vocallyexpressive, however, we need a deeper understanding of how nonlinguistic social signals are patterned and perceived. In this paper, we focus on laughter expressions: how a phrase of vocalized notes that we call ''laughter'' may bemodeled and performed to implicate nuanced meaning imbued in the acousticsignal. In designing our model, we emphasize (1) using high-level descriptors as control parameters, (2) enabling real-time performable laughter, and (3) prioritizing expressiveness over realism. We present an interactive systemimplemented in ChucK that allows users to systematically play with the musicalingredients of laughter. A crowd sourced study on the perception of synthesized laughter showed that our model is capable of generating a range of laughter types, suggesting an exciting potential for expressive laughter synthesis.},
 address = {Daejeon, Republic of Korea},
 author = {Jieun Oh and Ge Wang},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1178626},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 keywords = {laughter, vocalization, synthesis model, real-time controller, interface for musical expression},
 month = {May},
 pages = {190--195},
 publisher = {Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST},
 title = {LOLOL: Laugh Out Loud On Laptop},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2013/nime2013_86.pdf},
 year = {2013}
}