Audio retrieval using perceptually based structures

Despite growing interest in multimedia data management, audio retrieval has received little attention. In part, this can be attributed to existing unstructured audio representations that do not easily lend themselves to content based retrieval and especially browsing. This paper aims to address this oversight. It begins by reviewing existing techniques and the specific problems posed by unstructured representations. Some characteristics of audio perception that may be exploited in the solution to these problems are then presented. A new structured representation is then detailed that is designed to support content based retrieval and browsing. Finally, the suitability of this representation for its intended purpose is discussed.