Front cover -- Titelseite -- Impressum -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- 1 Speech as a source of information -- 1.1 Allure of human speech -- 1.2 Information in speech -- 1.3 Speech complexity -- 1.4 Speech variability -- 2 Goal and theoretical orientation of the re-search -- 2.1 Interdisciplinary overview -- 2.2 Objectives and methods -- 2.3 Defining concepts -- 2.4 Areas of application -- 2.5 Hypotheses and expectations -- 2.6 Structure of the dissertation -- 3 Speaker recognition: from Philosophy to Artificial Intelligence -- 3.1 Establishing the terrain -- 3.2 Personal identity: complexity and multidimension-ality -- 3.2.1 Concept of identity, characteristics and criteria -- 3.2.2 Personal identity and language -- 3.2.3 Philosophical considerations -- 3.3 Perception, representation and cognition -- 3.3.1 Symbolism and connectionism -- 3.3.2 Human brain and levels of perception -- 3.4 Concluding remarks -- 4 Speech and speaker-specific information -- 4.1 Speech chain -- 4.1.1 Speech production -- 4.1.2 Speech transmission -- 4.1.3 Speech perception -- 4.1.4 Neural correlates in speech processing -- 4.2 Empirical studies of speaker perception -- 4.2.1 Infantile perception of speaker's identity -- 4.2.2 Socio-psychological studies in speaker recognition and identification -- 4.3 Concluding remarks -- 5 Computational analysis of speech -- 5.1 Speech processing models -- 5.1.1 Modelling speech production -- 5.1.2 Modelling speech perception -- 5.2 Speech processing methods -- 5.2.1 Basic components -- 5.2.2 Classification of methods -- 5.2.3 Feature extraction methods -- 5.2.4 Model generation methods -- 5.2.5 Matching procedure and decision methods -- 5.3 Pattern recognition in speech and speaker processing -- 5.3.1 Overview -- 5.3.2 Statistical processing -- 5.3.3 The connectionist approach.