An HMM-based speech-smile synthesis system: An approach for amusement synthesis

This paper presents an HMM-based speech-smile synthesis system. In order to do that, databases of three speech styles were recorded. This system was used to study to what extent synthesized speech-smiles (defined as Duchenne smiles in our work) and spread-lips (speech modulated by spreading the lips) communicate amusement. Our evaluation results showed that the speech-smiles synthesized sentences are perceived as more amused than the spread-lips ones. Acoustic analysis of the pitch and first two formants are also provided.