Apparatus for automatic spoken phoneme identification

Claim 1

APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY INDICATING THE PRESENCE OF A PARTICULAR PHONEME IN HUMAN SPEECH COMPRISING MEANS FOR GENERATING AN ELECTRICAL SIGNAL WHICH VARIES IN ACCORDANCE WITH VARIATIONS IN THE HUMAN SPEECH TO BE ANALYZED, AND A PLURALITY OF FREQUENCY SELECTIVE DEVICES CONNECTED TO SAID LAST-MENTIONED MEANS, EACH OF SAID FREQUENCY SELECTIVE DEVICES SEPARATING OUT A SUB-BAND OF FREQUENCIES, EACH OF SAID SUB-BANDS HAVING A FREQUENCY RANGE INCLUDING THE WEIGHTED CENTER FREQUENCIES OF ONE OF THE FORMANTS OF A PARTICULAR PHONEME, AND AN AMPLITUDE DISCRIMINATING SWITCH MEANS CONNECTED TO A PLURALITY OF SAID FREQUENCY SELECTIVE DEVICES, SAID AMPLITUDE SWITCH MEANS INCLUDING A FIRST MEANS FOR SENSING THE PRESENCE OF THE AMPLITUDE LEVEL OF THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF ONE OF SAID FILTER DEVICES WITHIN A FIRST PREDETERMINED AMPLITUDE RANGE, SAID SWITCH MEANS INCLUDING A SECOND MEANS FOR SENSING THE PRESENCE OF THE AMPLITUDE LEVEL OF THE ELECTRICAL OUTPUT OF ANOTHER OF SAID FILTER DEVICES WITHIN A SECOND PREDETERMINED AMPLITUDE RANGE, SAID FIRST AND SECOND MEANS OF THE SWITCH MEANS BEING OPERATIVELY ASSOCIATED TO INDICATE THE PRESENCE OF THE PARTICULAR PHONEME ONLY WHEN THE FIRST AND SECOND MEANS OF THE SWITCH MEANS SENSE THE ASSOCIATED SIGNALS AS BEING WITHIN THE PARTICULAR RANGES.