Toward Semantic Indexing and Retrieval Using Hierarchical Audio ModelsWei-Ta Chu, Wen-Huang Cheng, Jane Yung-Jen Hsu and Ja-LingWuMultimedia Systems, 2005

Mohammad S. Al Awad985426

26-May-2008

OutlineIntroductionBackgroundAudio Event?Semantic Context?Problem statementHierarchical FrameworkModelingPerformanceIndexing and Retrieval

IntroductionSemantic indexing and content

retrieval in:◦Audio: speech, music, noise and

silence◦Audiovisual: shots, dialogue and

action sceneRepresentation of high-level

query semantics◦E.g Scenes associated with semantic

meaning vs. color layouts and object positions

BackgroundPrevious work concentrated on

identifying sounds like applause, gunshot, cheer or silence.

Tools used: Bayesian Network and Support Vector Machine SVM to fuse information from different sounds

Critique: isolated sounds carry less solid semantic

Audio EventShort audio clip that represent

the sound of an object or eventThey can be characterized by

statistical patterns and temporal evolution

Semantic ContextThe context of semantic concept

is an analysis unit that represents more reasonable granularity for multimedia content usage

Semantic Concept: gunplay scene

Semantic Context: gunshots and explosions in action movie

Enhancing the problem statement?Index multimedia documents by

detecting high-level semantic contexts. To characterize a semantic context, audio events highly relevant to specific semantic concepts are collected and modeled.

Occurrence patterns of gunshot and explosion events are used to characterize “gunplay” scenes, and the patterns of engine and car-braking events are used to characterize “car chasing” scenes.

Hierarchical FrameworkLow-level events, such as

gunshot, explosion, engine and car braking sounds are modeled

Based on the statistical information collected from various audio event detection results two methods are investigated to fuse this information: Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and Hidden Markov model (HMM)

Hierarchical Framework (cont.)

ModelingFeature extractionAudio event modelingConfidence evaluationSemantic context modeling

◦Gaussian mixture model◦Hidden Markov model

Feature ExtractionExtract suitable time and

frequency domain features to build feature vector

Audio streams: 16-KHz, 16-bit mono, 400 samples, 50% overlap

Feature Extraction (tools)Perceptual Features

◦STE short-time energy: is the loudness or volume

◦BER band-energy ratio: the spectrum is divided to four bands where energy of each sub band is divided by total energy

◦ZCR zero-crossing rate: average number of signal sign change in audio frame

Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients MFCCFrequency Centroid (FC)Bandwidth (BW)

Feature Extraction (feature vector)16-dimension feature vector

◦1(STE)+4(BER)+1(ZCR)+1(FC)+1(BW)+8(MFCC)

16-dimension feature vector◦Audio frame difference between Ai-

Ai+1

Result is 32-dimension feature vector

Audio Event ModelingHidden Markov Model HMM is used to

model audio samplesEach HMM module takes the extracted

features as input◦Forward algorithm is used to compute the

log-likelihood of an audio segment with respect to each audio event

◦Baum-Welch algorithm to estimate transitions probabilities between states (physical meaning)

◦Clustering algorithm to determine model size and states

Audio Event Modeling (training)HMM models: gunshot, explosion,

engine, car brakingTraining data: 100 audio events

3-10 sec representing each HMM model

Confidence EvaluationTo determine how a segment is close

to an audio event, a confidence metric is calculated◦Compare in 1second step (analysis

window) the audio segment with the audio event model

◦Use log-likelihood from Forward algorithm◦Audio segment might not belong to audio

model◦Likelihood ratio test: distribution of log-

likelihood

Confidence Evaluation (depicted)

These confidence scores are the input of high-level modeling and provide important clues to bridge audio event and semantic context.

Semantic Context Modeling (GMM)Goal: detect high-level semantic

context based on confidence scores of audio events that are highly relevant to the semantic concept

Training data: 30 gunplay and car chasing scenes each 3-5 min are selected from 10 Hollywood action movies

Five-fold cross validation (random 24 training, 6 testing)

GMM how does it work?Semantic context last for a

period of time and not all relevant audio events exists

A texture window of 5 sec is defined with 2.5 sec overlap

Go through confidence values (analysis window of 1 sec step)

Construct pseudo-semantic features

GMM how does it work?Semantic context detectionIn the case of gunplay scenes, if

all the feature elements of gunshot and explosion events are located in the detection regions, it is said that the segment conveys the semantics of gunplay.

Semantic Context Modeling (HMM)Critique of GMM Model:

◦Does not model the time duration density◦Segments with low or high confidence

scores due to environment sounds or sound emerge

HMM model captures the spectral variation of acoustic features in time by considering state transitions and giving different likelihood values◦Ergodic-HMM or fully connected HMM

HMM how does it work?Calculate the probability of

partial observation sequence, and state i at time t given some model λ

Using Forward algorithm calculate the log-likelihood value that represent how likely a semantic context is to occur

PerformanceUncertainty is avoided: aural

information tend to remain the same whether visual scene was day or night, downtown or forest

Rare to have car chasing concept without engine sound !!

Precision is high indicates high confidence of detection results

Short length evens e.g. car braking infer lower precision

False alarms i.e. incorrect detection

Performance

Indexing and RetrievalConcept match between aural

and visual informationIf visual information is taken into

account, characteristic consistency between different video clips with the same concept

Generalized framework: replacing audio events by visual object models. Thus, detect both audio and audiovisual

Future WorkCareful design of pseudo-

semantic feature vectors to construct meta-classifier (feature selection pool)

Blind source separation (media-aesthetic rules)

Thank you