Interpretation-guided signal processing via protocol analysis

A signal processing system which integrates signal and symbol processing was designed and initial implementation experiments were performed. The system design was derived from the systematic observation (protocol collection) and analysis of human signal processing activity. The resulting system consists of (i) expert rules, which process symbolic representations of signal characteristics at various levels of abstraction, and (ii) signal processing operators, which are invoked by the rules to extract signal features. This design parallels the apparent operational mode of a human analyst. The signal processing operators include those used by the human expert (e.g. FFT) and others that perform perceptual feature extraction normally done by the expert while reviewing plots of numeric algorithmic outputs. In comparison to previous signal/symbol processing systems, which relied mostly on symbol processing, our system is based on the concept that a small amount of planned signal processing can save a lot of symbol processing.