ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Spectral shape analysis

Have you ever seen a rainbow? When white light passes through a prism, it splits into a rainbow of colors. Each color in the rainbow has a different wavelength and frequency.

Now imagine that instead of white light, we have a sound wave. Just like light, sound waves have different frequencies, and we can visualize them with a special tool called a spectrum analyzer.

Spectral shape analysis is a way to study sound waves by analyzing the shape of their spectrum. Just like how different colors in a rainbow have different wavelengths, different sound waves also have different frequencies.

By looking at the spectral shape of a sound wave, we can learn a lot about it. For example, we can use spectral shape analysis to identify different instruments in a piece of music. Each instrument has a unique spectral shape that can be recognized by the analyzer.

We can also use spectral shape analysis to study speech. People have different vocal tract shapes, which affect the way they sound when they speak. By analyzing the spectral shape of speech, we can learn about the speaker's vocal tract and even identify them based on their unique spectral shape.

Overall, spectral shape analysis is a useful tool for studying sound waves and can tell us a lot about the sources of those waves, such as instruments or people's voices.