arXiv Computation and Language

Hearing Like Humans? Sound Symbolism and Perceptual Alignment in Speech Language Models

arXiv AI
Sep 3

Auditory Illusion Benchmark for Large Audio Language Models

The paper introduces AIB, the first benchmark of auditory perceptual illusion tasks designed for Large Audio Language Models (LALMs). It covers ten representative music, sound, and speech‑based illusory phenomena, each annotated for knowledge‑based priors, and evaluates models alongside controlled human listening studies. Results reveal that while LALMs are generally signal‑faithful on low‑level acoustic cues, some models show more human‑like responses when linguistic or musical priors are involved, yet none fully match human perceptual patterns.

By Hayoon Kim, Eunice Hong, Kyogu Lee
arXiv AI
Aug 26

Do Joint Language-Audio Embeddings Encode Perceptual Timbre Semantics?

The paper investigates whether joint language‑audio embedding models encode human perceptual timbre semantics. It evaluates several state‑of‑the‑art models, finding that LAION‑CLAP aligns best with human‑perceived timbre across instrumental sounds and descriptor‑conditioned audio effects, yet the overall alignment remains limited. The study also notes that reverb‑induced timbre semantics are more consistently captured than equalization‑induced ones.

By Qixin Deng, Bryan Pardo, Thrasyvoulos N Pappas
arXiv AI
Sep 30

Similar Choices, Different Attention: Cross-Modal Associations in Humans and Vision-Language Models

The study compares human and vision‑language model (VLM) responses to cross‑modal association tasks, using identical stimuli (a pseudo‑word and two images) and recording both choices and eye movements. While larger VLMs show some alignment with human choices, their attention patterns correlate poorly with human gaze, performing no better than a simple center‑bias baseline. Fine‑tuning VLMs on human choices improves choice alignment but not attention alignment, and training on human gaze improves attention correlation without affecting choice accuracy.

By Sumin Hong, Katsumi Ibaraki, Renee Shi, David Chiang, Toby Jia-Jun Li
arXiv AI
Sep 2

Heard but Not Heeded: Paralinguistic Information Encoding and Loss in Audio-Language Models

The paper investigates whether audio‑language models capture paralinguistic cues beyond spoken content. Using the Expresso dataset and four open‑source models, the authors trace how speaking style information is encoded in the late layers of the audio encoder but is degraded before reaching the final output. They find that some models are content‑driven while others are acoustic‑driven, revealing a gap between what is encoded and what is utilized in current audio‑language models.

By Bhuvan Koduru, Dareen Safar B Alharthi, Rita Singh, Bhiksha Raj
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 27

Do Vision-Language Models Agree on the Affective Qualities of Shape? A Cross-Model Audit for Generative Design Interfaces

The study audits six vision‑language models (VLMs) to assess whether they consistently encode affective qualities of 3D shapes, using Kansei adjective pairs as affective axes. Across ten ShapeNet categories, models show moderate agreement (mean rank correlation 0.36) that is lower than geometric controls but higher than unrelated adjective pairs, with convergence varying widely by category and axis. The authors demonstrate how this audit informs a UI prototype that selectively exposes Kansei descriptors for generative design interfaces.

By Luca Bux, Thiago Rios, Ingo Scholtes, Stefan Menzel