Using audio signal modification to validate the acoustic features relevance

In this work, we focus on experiments using modifications of prosodic parameters separately and in various combinations. For this purpose, original homonymous neutral and ironic utterances were modified to achieve the opposite effect, i.e. to get ironic utterances from neutral ones and vice versa. These original homonymous utterances were read by Russian native speakers in mini-texts and dialogues implying neutral or ironic meaning, then they were extracted from the context, any markers of ironic or non-ironic meaning were eliminated, then they were suggested to native listeners during the auditory perceptual experiments. The acoustic analysis was done for pairs of homonymous ironic and non-ironic utterances whose meaning was correctly recognized by the majority of listeners. The most salient acoustic features of ironic meaning were calculated. Then, modifications were done in the pairs of ironic and non-ironic utterances containing these features. In the three series of experiments, temporal, dynamic, and melodic parameters were modified using Wave Assistant and Praat software. The results of perceptual experiments with modified stimuli not only demonstrated the prevalence of the melodic pattern, but also revealed the complex of acoustic features of irony and indicated the challenges with modified ironic stimuli due to their spectral density.