A Multi-Resolution Hidden Markov Model Using Class-Specific Features

We apply the PDF projection theorem to generalize the hidden Markov model (HMM) to accommodate multiple simultaneous segmentations of the raw data and multiple feature extraction transformations. Different segment sizes and feature transformations are assigned to each state. The algorithm averages over all allowable segmentations by mapping the segmentations to a “proxy” HMM and using the forward procedure. A by-product of the algorithm is the set of a posteriori state probability estimates that serve as a description of the input data. These probabilities have simultaneously the temporal resolution of the smallest processing windows and the processing gain and frequency resolution of the largest processing windows. The method is demonstrated on the problem of precisely modeling the consonant “T” in order to detect the presence of a distinct “burst” component. We compare the algorithm against standard speech analysis methods using data from the TIMIT corpus.