• Photos of the lecture

Prof. Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier
Institute of Physics

It is quite normal for us humans to speak and understand the language of other people. But how does this actually work?
An old human dream is to build machines with which we can converse as we would with a human being. But this is difficult because even the best computers sound unconvincing when they try to speak. These machines also fail miserably when they try to understand us humans. Why is that?
To better understand all this, we are going on a journey of discovery through the human speech apparatus. We learn about the vocal folds, the larynx and our speech-forming apparatus and recreate everything with the computer. In the end, we won't be able to understand talking
machines any better, but we will understand why we understand so little!

Moderator: Anke Genius, NDR

Wednesday, 27 February 2008
4.30 to 5.30 p.m.
Audimax, Hörsaalzentrum