Exploiting Speech Recognition Transcripts for Narrative Peak Detection in Short-Form Documentaries

Narrative peaks are points at which the viewer perceives a spike in the level of dramatic tension within the narrative flow of a video. This paper reports on four approaches to narrative peak detection in television documentaries that were developed by a joint team consisting of members from Delft University of Technology and the University of Twente within the framework of the VideoCLEF 2009 Affect Detection task. The approaches make use of speech recognition transcripts and seek to exploit various sources of evidence in order to automatically identify narrative peaks. These sources include speaker style (word choice), stylistic devices (use of repetitions), strategies strengthening viewers' feelings of involvement (direct audience address) and emotional speech. These approaches are compared to a challenging baseline that predicts the presence of narrative peaks at fixed points in the video, presumed to be dictated by natural narrative rhythm or production convention. Two approa...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2009
• Where: CLEF
• Authors: Martha Larson, Bart Jochems, Ewine Smits, Roeland Ordelman
• Keywords: CLEF 2009, Dramatic Tension, Information Technology, Narrative Peak, Speech Recognition Transcripts