Findings Could Lead To Improved Lip-reading Training For The Deaf And Hard-of-hearing

via ScienceDaily

Sep. 13, 2009 — A new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) suggests computers are now better at lip-reading than humans.

A research team from the School of Computing Sciences at UEA compared the performance of a machine-based lip-reading system with that of 19 human lip-readers. They found that the automated system significantly outperformed the human lip-readers – scoring a recognition rate of 80 per cent, compared with only 32 per cent for human viewers on the same task.

Furthermore, they found that machines are able to exploit very simplistic features that represent only the shape of the face, whereas human lip-readers require full video of people speaking.

The peer-reviewed findings will be presented for the first time at the eighth International Conference on Auditory-Visual Speech Processing (AVSP) 2009, held at the University of East Anglia from September 10-13.

The study also showed that rather than the traditional approach to lip-reading training, in which viewers are taught to spot key lip-shapes from static (often drawn) images, the dynamics and the full appearance of speech gestures are very important.

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