The Speech Chain: The Physics And Biology Of Spoken Language

Dr. Peter B. Denes (1920-1996) was the author and co-author of many articles on automatic speech recognition, speech intonation, hearing tests and hearing aids. A member of the Acoustics and Speech Research Laboratory, where his chief interests lay in researching automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis, he was a lecturer at University College London from 1946 to 1961, where he also supervised the Phonetics Department’s laboratory, teaching the physics, biology and psychology of spoken communication. Simultaneously, Dr. Denes held appointments as physicist at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and as honorary consultant at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. He was a member of the Institute’s Medical and Scientific Committee and a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.

Dr. Elliot N. Pinson was a member of the Computing and Information Research Center, where he was engaged in speech analysis and pattern recognition research. A Princeton University graduate, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a Whiton Fellowship, and was awarded the S.M. degree in 1957. Continuing his studies at the California Institute of Technology, where he was a Ramo-Woolridge and Space Technology Laboratories Fellow, he researched adaptive control systems and received his Ph.D. degree in 1961. He was an instructor in electrical engineering at Cal-Tech from 1960‒61 and also worked on the design and analysis of missile guidance and control systems. Dr. Pinson was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, as well as the Acoustical Society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.