Effects Of Duration And Articulation Changes On Intelligibility, Word Reception And Listener Preference

Effect on Speech Intelligibility of Changes in Speech Production Influenced by Instructions and Communication Environments

“…28 In three studies, 19,21,25 talkers received training from the experimenter, including modeling clear speech after examples supplied by the experimenter 21,25 or recorded stimuli from previous clear speech studies. 19 For the comparison condition, talking environments were held constant and instructions were varied, including the following: speak clearly, [5][6][7][8][9]12,13,15,22,24,[26][27][28] speak as if to a listener with hearing loss 10,11,13,15,17,18,20,22,23,25,26,29 or with difficulty understanding, 12 articulate or enunciate clearly/more or avoid slurring, 5,6,8,10,11,[14][15][16][17][18]25,27 speak as if in a noisy or difficult environment, [15][16]…”

“…5,6 In addition to the instructions about how to produce clear speech, some studies also asked talkers not to talk loudly or shout. 6,9,10,14 Within a given study of Lombard speech, instructions were usually held constant, 31,33,35,36,40,41,[45][46][47][49][50][51]54,57,59 and in many studies 30,36,37,43,44,48,52,53,55,58 talkers were not given any specific guidelines about how to produce their speech, except for some in which the instructions were always to speak clearly 41,54 or to speak as if trying to communicate with a listener. 34,47,49,50,57,59 Talking Environments For studies on clear speech, talkers always produced speech in a quiet environment, whereas in Lombard studies, the noise in the talking environment was varied.…”

Modeling intrinsic intelligibility variation: vowel-space size and structure

“…One of the earliest studies of intelligibility and speech rate was by Tolhurst, who found significant differences in intelligibility among three rate-related styles (prolonged, normal, and stacao speech), with the fastest speech ("staccato") being the least intelligible (Tolhurst, 1957). In more recent studies, however, evidence has been mixed as to whether speech rate is predictive of intelligibility.…”

“…Early work by Tolhurst on adaptive intelligibility and speech styles was discussed in Section II-A with regard to speaking rate (Tolhurst, 1957); related studies examined the effect of instructions to talkers to speak clearly (Tolhurst, 1954(Tolhurst, , 1955. Most recent research into the intelligibility of speech styles has likewise focused on "clear speech" -speech directed toward listeners who are hard of hearing and produced with intent to aid comprehension -a line of research pioneered by Durlach, Braida and colleagues (e.g., Picheny et al, 1985Picheny et al, , 1986Picheny et al, , 1989Uchanski et al, 1996;Krause & Braida, 2004).…”