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 [BibTeX] [Marc21]
Exploratory analysis of yellow mongoose vocalization: detection from in-the-wild recordings and call classification
Type of publication: Conference paper
Citation: Hovsepyan_INTERSPEECH_2026_2026
Booktitle: Proceedings of Interspeech
Year: 2026
Abstract: Understanding the vocal repertoire of social animals, such as the yellow mongoose (YM), is crucial for deciphering their social structure and evolutionary history. In this study, we present an exploratory analysis of YM vocalization detection and classification using both signal processing and machine learning approaches. The analysis uses two distinct datasets: (1) expert-annotated, clean pup vocalizations (n=940), and (2) noisy field recordings (n=29) captured with directional microphones. Our results indicate that handcrafted features, originally developed for human speech modeling to represent syllables, are effective for animal vocalization classification, suggesting potential shared acoustic structures. Although detecting YM vocalizations in wild recordings proved challenging, our objective is to aid annotators by flagging potential vocalization segments. The results presented in this work provide a foundation for scalable, semi-automated analysis of animal vocal repertoires.
Main Research Program: Human-AI Teaming
Additional Research Programs: AI for Everyone
Keywords: animal VAD, animal vocalizations, handcrafted features, language evolution, yellow mongoose
Projects: EVOLANG
Idiap
Authors: Hovsepyan, Sevada
Ben Mahmoud, Imen
Rüegg, Vanessa
Manser, Marta
Magimai-Doss, Mathew
Added by: [UNK]
Total mark: 0
Attachments
  • Hovsepyan_INTERSPEECH_2026_2026.pdf
Notes