Introduction of researcher

Revision    1
As of  2005. 4. 4      
 
[Name]  Tohkura Yoh'ichi
[Doctoral degrees] 
1980, Dr.Eng,
[Affiliation / Position]  Professor, Deputy Director General
[Telephone]  +81-3-4212-2002
[Facsimile]  +81-3-4212-2014
[E-mail]  tohkura@nii.ac.jp
[Research fields] 
Human Informatics, Speech Science, Information Institution


<> Outline of current research
<> Education
<> Career
<> Awards
<> Teaching positions
<> Courses
<> Academic societies
<> Public activities
<> Most important publications (Top 10)
<> Most important activities (Top 10)
<> Refereed publications, published books
<> Patents / softwares / other works
<> Other publications
<> Speeches and oral presentations
<> Competitive research funds



[Outline of current research] 

Transdisciplinary approach to the future relationships information science/technology and human beings/environment/society.
[Education] 

Mar.1970 B.E.(Mathematical Engineering and Instrumentation Physics, University of Tokyo)

Mar.1972 M.E.

(Mathematical Engineering and Instrumentation Physics, University of Tokyo)
[Career] 

1972　Researcher, Musashino Electrical Communication Laboratories, NTT

1984　Visiting Researcher, AT&T Bell Laboratories

1986　Head, Speech & Hearing Department, ATR Audio & Visual Perception Res. Labs.

1992　President, ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories

1997　Director, NTT Basic Research Laboratories

1999　Director, NTT Communication Science Laboratories

2000　Executive Director, NTT Science & Core Technology Laboratory Group

2003　Professor, National Institute of Informatics (NII)

2004 Department Director, Development and Operations Department, National Institute of Informatics(Additional post) (till March 2005)

2005　Deputy Director General, National Institute of Informatics (Additional post)
[Awards] 

1982　NTT President Award for Invention

1986　Paper Award, Acoustical Society of Japan

1994　NTT Award for Distinguished Patent

1997　Paper Award, Acoustical Society of Japan

1997　Telecom System Technology Award, Telecommunication Promotion Foundation

1998　IEEE Fellow

1998　Fellow, Acoustical Soceity of America

2000　IEICE Fellow

2003　NTT R&D Fellow

[Teaching positions] 

1994 Adjunct Professor, Nara Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (-2001)

2001 Adjunct Professor, Hokkaido University (-2003)

2002 Adjunct Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology (-2003)

2004 Professor, School of Multidisciplinary Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Department of Informatics (Human and Eivironmental Informatics)
[Courses] 

Human and Environmental Informatics (2005 fiscal year-)
[Academic societies] 

Special Workshop in Maui (SWIM): Lectures by Masters in Speech Processing, Memeber, Workshop Organizing Committee (2003-2004)

Molecule-Based Information Transmission and Reception-Application of membrane protein biofunction- (MB-ITR2005), Advisory Committee

1992 Member of PCICSLP (-2000)

1993 Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Phonetics (-present)

1993 Member, Editorial Board, Speech Communication (-present)

1996 Vice Chair of PCICSLP (-1998)

1997 Member, IEEE NNSP Tech. Com. (-1999)

1997 Vice President, Acoustical Society of Japan (-1999)

1997 Member, International Advisory Committee, 1998 ICSLP (-1998)

1997 Member, Speech Communication Committee, Acoustical Society of America (-1999)

1997 Councilor, Vertual Reality Society of Japan

1998 Member, Organizing Committee, WESTPRAC VII (-2000)

1999 Vice Chair & Chair, Chapter Operation Committee, IEEE Japan Council (-2001)　

1999 Vice Chair & Chair, Fellow Nominations Committee, IEEE Japan Council (-2002)　

1999 Member, Organizing Committee, ICA　(-2005)

2000 Councilor, Japan Society of Software Science and Technology

2000 Councilor, IEICE (-2002)

2001 Councilor, IEEE Tokyo Section (-2002)

2001 Member, Advisory Committee, Cool Chips V-VII (-2003)
[Public activities] 

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Council for Science and Technology, Member

Science Council of Japan, Fundamental Infomatics Committee, Member

Japan Science and Technology Agency, Research Promotion Funds, Advisor

International Institute for Advanced Studies, Planning Board, Member

Foundation Advanced Technology Institute, Councilor

Riken BSI International Advisory Council, Member

Kobe University, Advisory Council, Member

Nara Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, Faculty of Information Science, Advisory Committee, Member
[Most important publications (Top 10)] 

  1. TOHKURA, Y. and AIKAWA, K.: "Cepstral Analysis of Speech," in Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Inc (1999.4)

  2. SEKIYAMA, K. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Inter-Language Differences in the Influence of Visual Cues in Speech Perception," J. Phonetics, Vol.21, No.4,pp.427-444 (1993.10)

  3. YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.: "The Effects of Experimental Variables on the Perception of American English /r/ and /l/ by JapaneseListeners," J. Perception & Psychophysics, Vol.52, No.4, pp.376-392(1992.5)

  4. TOHKURA, Y., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and SAGISAKA, Y. (Eds.): "Speech Perception, Production and Linguistic Structure," Tokyo, Ohmsha and Amsterdam, IOS Press (1992)

  5. TSUKAMOTO, T. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Perceptual Units of the Infant Cry," Early Child Development and Care, 65, pp.167-178 (1991.7)

  6. TOHKURA, Y.:"A Weighted Cepstral Distance Measure for Speech Recognition," IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech & Signal Process., Vol. ASSP-35,pp.1414-1422 (1987.10)

  7. TOHKURA, Y., ITAKURA, F. and Hashimoto S.:”Spectral Smoothing Technique in PARCOR Speech Analysis-Synthesis,” IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech &Signal Process., Vol. ASSP-26, No.6, pp.587-596 (1978.12)
[Most important activities (Top 10)] 

  1. FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION SOCIETY ；Plenary Lecture, ICA2004 (The 18th International Congress on Acoustics), 4 April 2004, Kyoto International Conference Hall

  2. MUNHALL, K., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and TOHKURA, Y.: X-ray Film Database for Speech Research, 3M Prerecorded Optical Media (1994)

  3. TOHKURA, Y. and Hashimoto S.: Method and Apparatus for Judging Voiced and Unvoiced Conditions of Speech Signal, U.S.Patent 4,074,069, Feb.14,1978
[Refereed publications, published books] 

  1. "Future of Communication Science and Technologies in Information Society"ICA 2004(The 18th International Congress on Acoustics)Su1.M pp.I-1 - I-6, 2004 April

  2. TOHMA, A., SHIMOHARA, K., TOHKURA, Y. and YOKOYA, N.: "Creation of Noh mask using a 3D computer graphics technique," Proc. IEEE International Conference on Information Visualisation (IV 2000), pp.407-412 (2000.7)

  3. TOHKURA, Y. and AIKAWA, K.: "Cepstral Analysis of Speech," in Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Inc (1999.4)

  4. MUNHALL, K. G. and TOHKURA, Y: "Audiovisual Gating and the Time Course of Speech Perception," J. Acous. Soc.Am., 104, No.1, pp.530-539 (1998.7)

  5. BADIN, P., POUCHOY, L., BAILLY, G., RAYBAUDI, M., SEGEBARTH, C., LEBAS, J. F., TIEDE, M., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Un Modele Articulatoire Tridimensionnel du Conduit Vocal Base Sur des Donnees IRM," Proc. XXIIemen Journees d'Etudes sur la Parole (JEP '98), pp.283-286 (1998. 6)

  6. KANZAKI, R., KATO, T. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Influence of Facial Views on the McGurk Effect," J. Acous. Soc. Jpn., Vol. 19, No.1, pp. 69-72 (1998.1)

  7. YAMADA, R. A., TOHKURA, Y. and KOBAYASHI, N.: "Effect of Word Familiarity on Non-native Phoneme Perception: Identification of English /r/, /l/ and /w/ by Native Speakers of Japanese," in Second-Language Speech: Structure and Process, Mouton de Gruyter, pp.103-117 (1997.5)

  8. BRADLOW, A. R., PISONI, D. B., YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Training Japanese Listeners to Identify English /r/ and /l/: IV. Some Effects of Perceptual Learning on Speech Production," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 101, No.4, pp.2299-2310 (1997.4)

  9. DANG, J., HONDA, K. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Investigation of Chinese Vowel Articulation Using X-ray Microbeam System," Proc. First China-Japan Workshop on Spoken Language Processing (CJSLP'97), pp.73-78 (1997.4)

  10. YAMADA, R. A., TOHKURA, Y., BRADLOW, A. R. and PISONI, D. B.: "Does Training in Speech Perception Modify Speech Production?" Proc. 4th Int. Conf. on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP'96), pp.606-609 (1996.10)

  11. SEKIYAMA, K., TOHKURA, Y. and UMEDA, M.: "A Few Factors which Affect the Degree of Incorporating Lip-Read Information into Speech Perception," Proc. on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP'96), pp.1481-1484 (1996.10)

  12. USUI, S., TOHKURA, Y., KATAGIRI, S. and WILSON, E. (Eds.): "Neural Networks for Signal Processing VI," Proc. 1996 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing (1996.9)

  13. KANZAKI, R., KATO. T., TOHKURA, Y. and AKAMATSU, S.: "Effects of Other-Mode Context on Face and Voice Recognition," Int. J. Psychology, Vol.31, Issues 3 and 4, Abstract of XXVI Int. Cong. of Psychology, 154.54, p.56 (1996.8)

  14. AIKAWA, K., SINGER, H., KAWAHARA, H. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Cepstral Representation of Speech Motivated by Time-Frequency Masking: An Application to Speech Recognition," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. , Vol.100, No.1, pp.603-614 (1996.7)

  15. MUNHALL, K. G., VATIKIOTIS BATESON, E. and TOHKURA, Y.:"X-Ray Film Database for Speech Research," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 98, No.2, Pt.1, pp.1222-1224 (1995.8)

  16. BRADLOW, A. R., PISONI, D. B., YAMADA. R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Acquisition of the English /r/-/l/ Contrast by Japanese Speakers: Effects of Training in Perception of Production," Proc. 13th Intl. Cong. of Phonetic Science (ICPhS'95), Vol.4, pp.562-565 (1995.8)

  17. MUNHALL, K., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Preserving X-ray films for for Speech Research," ACCOR Workshop on Articulatory Databases (1995.5)

  18. NAKAGAWA, S., SHINANO, K. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Speech, Hearing and Neural Network Models," Tokyo, Ohmsha and Amsterdam, IOS Press (1995)

  19. Kiyoshi HONDA, Hiroyuki HIRAI, Jo ESTILL and Yoh'ichi TOHKURA: "Contributions of Vocal Tract Shape to Voice Quality: MRI Data and Articulatory Modeling," Vocal Fold Physiology―Voice Quality Control―, Chapter 2, pp.23-38 (1995.1)

  20. LIVELY, S. E., PISONI, D. B., YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Training Japanese Listeners to Identify English /r/ and /l/. III. Long-Term　Retention of New Phonetic Categories," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol.96, No.4, pp.2076-2087 (1994.10)

  21. KUHL, P. K., TSUZAKI, M., TOHKURA, Y. and MELZOFF, A. N.: "Human Processing of Auditory-Visual Information in Speech Perception: Potential for Multimodal Human-Machine Interfaces," Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP'94), Vol.2, S11-4, pp.539-542 (1994.9)

  22. SEKIYAMA, K. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Inter-Language Differences in the Influence of Visual Cues in Speech Perception," J. Phonetics, Vol.21, No.4,pp.427-444 (1993.10)

  23. AIKAWA, K., SINGER, H., KAWAHARA, H. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Dynamic Cepstrum Incorporating Time-Frequency Masking and Its Application to Continuous Speech Recognition," Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Acoustic, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP'93), Vol.II, pp.668-671 (1993.4)

  24. YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.: "The Effects of Experimental Variables on the Perception of American English /r/ and /l/ by JapaneseListeners," J. Perception & Psychophysics, Vol.52, No.4, pp.376-392(1992.5)

  25. TSUKAMOTO, T. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Tempo as a Perceptual Cue for Judgment of Infant Cries," Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol.74 (1992.2)

  26. KITAHARA, Y. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Prosodic Control to Express Emotions for Man-Machine Speech Interaction," IEICE Trans. Fundamentals, Vol. E75-A, No.2, pp.155-163 (1992.2)

  27. TOHKURA, Y., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and SAGISAKA, Y. (Eds.): "Speech Perception, Production and Linguistic Structure," Tokyo, Ohmsha and Amsterdam, IOS Press (1992)

  28. YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Perception of American English /r/ and /l/ by Native Speakers of Japanese," in Speech Perception, Production and Linguistic Structure, edited by Tohkura,Y. et al., Ohmsha, Tokyo, pp.155-174 (1992.1)

  29. SEKIYAMA, K. and TOHKURA, Y.:"McGurk Effect in Non-English Listeners : Few Visual Effects for Japanese Subjects Hearing Japanese Syllables of High Auditory Intelligibility," J. Accoust. Soc. Am, Vol.90, No.4, Pt.1, pp.1797-1805 (1991.10)

  30. YAMADA, R. A. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Age Effect on Acquisition of Non-Native Phonemes: Perception of English /r/ and /l/ for Native Speakers of Japanese," Proc. 12th International Congress of Phonetic Science (ICPhS'91), Vol.4, pp.450-453 (1991.8)

  31. TSUKAMOTO, T. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Perceptual Units of the Infant Cry," Early Child Development and Care, 65, pp.167-178 (1991.7)

  32. YAMADA, R. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Perception and Production of Syllable-Initial English /r/ and /l/ by Native Speakers of Japanese," Proc. Intl. Conf. on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP'90), pp.757-760 (1990.11)

  33. AKAGI, M. and TOHKURA, Y.:"Spectrum Target Prediction Model and its Application to Speech Recognition," Computer Speech and Language, Vol.4, pp.325-344 (1990.10)

  34. IWAMIDA, H., KATAGIRI, S., MCDERMOTT, E. and TOHKURA, Y.:"A Hybrid Speech Recognition System Using HMMs with an LVQ-Trained Codebook," J.Acoust. Soc. Jpn (E), Vol.11, No.5, pp.277-286 (1990.9)

  35. MCDERMOTT, E., IWAMIDA, H., KATAGIRI, S. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Shift-Tolerant LVQ and Hybrid LVQ-HMM for Phoneme Recognition," in Readings in Speech Recognition edited by WAIBEL, A. and LEE, K.F., Morgan Kaufmann, pp.425-438 (1990.5)

  36. IWAMIDA, H., KATAGIRI, S., MCDERMOTT, E. and TOHKURA, Y.: "A Hybrid Speech Recognition System Using HMMs with an LVQ-trained Code book," Proc. Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP'90), pp.489-492 (1990.4)

  37. KOBAYASHI, N. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Acoustic and Physiological Characteristics of Traditional Singing in Japan," Proc. 1st Intl. Conf. on Music Perception and Cognition, pp.171-174 (1989.10)

  38. TSUKAMOTO, T. and TOHKURA, Y.: "Perceptual Units of the Infant Cry," The 3rd International Infant Cry Workshop (1989.7)

  39. AKAGI, M. and TOHKURA, Y.: "On the Application of Spectrum Target Prediction Model to Speech Recognition," Proc. Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech & Signal Processing (ICASSP'88), pp.139-142 (1988.4)

  40. TOHKURA, Y.:"A Weighted Cepstral Distance Measure for Speech Recognition," IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech & Signal Process., Vol. ASSP-35,pp.1414-1422 (1987.10)

  41. TOHKURA, Y.: "A Weighted Cepstral Distance Measure for Speech Recognition," Proc. Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP'86), pp.761-764 (1986.4)

  42. TOHKURA, Y. and ITAKURA, F.:"Spectral Sensitivity Analysis of PARCOR Parameters for Speech Data Compression," IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech &Signal Process., Vol. ASSP-27, No.3, pp.273-280 (1979.6)

  43. TOHKURA, Y., ITAKURA, F. and Hashimoto S.:”Spectral Smoothing Technique in PARCOR Speech Analysis-Synthesis,” IEEE Trans. Acoust., Speech &Signal Process., Vol. ASSP-26, No.6, pp.587-596 (1978.12)

  44. TOHKURA, Y. and ITAKURA, F.: "Spectral Sensitivity Analysis of PARCOR Parameter for Speech Data Compression," Proc.4th Int'l. Joint Conf. on Pattern Recognition, pp.1059-1063 (1978.11)

  45. etc.
[Patents / softwares / other works] 

  1. MUNHALL, K., VATIKIOTIS-BATESON, E. and TOHKURA, Y.: X-ray Film Database for Speech Research, 3M Prerecorded Optical Media (1994)

  2. TOHKURA, Y. and Hashimoto S.: Method and Apparatus for Judging Voiced and Unvoiced Conditions of Speech Signal, U.S.Patent 4,074,069, Feb.14,1978

  3. etc.
[Other publications] 

  1. Putting Our Heads Together, LOOK JAPN, Vol.49, No.573, P.30 (2003.12)

  2. TOHKURA, Y.: “Discriminative training for speech recognition,” J.Acoust.Soc.Jpn. (E)13(6), pp.331-332 (1992)

  3. ATR Human Information Processing Research Labs-Enhancing Human-Machine Communications Technology, New Breeze, Vol.4, No.3, Autumn, pp.12-13 ,1992.10

  4. etc.
[Speeches and oral presentations] 

  1. "Man, Technology and the Society":Lecture at Stanford Japan Center, Kyoto (May 24, 2004)

  2. FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION SOCIETY ；Plenary Lecture, ICA2004 (The 18th International Congress on Acoustics), 4 April 2004, Kyoto International Conference Hall

  3. TOHKURA, Y.："ATR Neural Network Research on Speech Processing," First Alliant Neural Networks　Colloquium (1988.10)

  4. TOHKURA, Y.："Experimental Comparison of Parameter Interpolation in LPC Vocoders," the 97th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Speech Communication Papers, pp.373-376 (1979.6)

  5. etc.
[Competitive research funds] 

  (1) Grant in aid for scientific research

  • Priority Areas (A)(1) "Utilization of Multimedia in Higher Education in 21st Century" Member for Research Planing (Fiscal 1998-2002)
  (2) Public funding

  • Science and Technology Agency Special Coordination Fund Project, Startegic Promotion System for Brain Science, "Communications of Primates including Humans." (Fiscal 1997-2001)
  (3) Others

  none