Perceptual effects of a flattened fundamental frequency at the sentence level under different listening conditions

Laures, Jacqueline S.; Bunton, Kate

doi:10.1016/s0021-9924(03)00032-7

Cited by 52 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For speech-in-noise listening conditions, previous studies have consistently demonstrated the importance of dynamic F 0 contours to speech intelligibility regardless of whether the target language is a tonal language or not (Laures and Bunton, 2003;Binns and Culling, 2007;Patel et al, 2010;Miller et al, 2010). The results show that naturally varying F 0 contours improve speech intelligibility in background noise compared with flat or inverted F 0 contours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 51%

“…The explanations proposed for these findings maintain that dynamic changes in F 0 direct the listener's attention to the content words of the utterance and assist with the segmentation of words in continuous speech. Unchanging F 0 lowers intelligibility of the utterance because it reduces the contrast between words and makes it more difficult to parse continuous speech into meaningful units (Laures and Bunton, 2003;Binns and Culling, 2007). As with the previous studies that examined the intelligibility of speech in quiet, the speech-in-noise investigations did not look into the contribution that semantic information provided by sentence context might make to speech intelligibility.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The roles of fundamental frequency contours and sentence context in Mandarin Chinese speech intelligibility

Wang

Shu

Zhang

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Flattening the fundamental frequency (F0) contours of Mandarin Chinese sentences reduces their intelligibility in noise but not in quiet. It is unclear, however, how the absence of primary acoustic cue for lexical tones might be compensated with the top-down information of sentence context. In this study, speech intelligibility was evaluated when participants listened to sentences and word lists with or without F0 variations in quiet and noise. The results showed that sentence context partially explained the unchanged intelligibility of monotonous Chinese sentences in quiet and further indicate that F0 variations and sentence context act in concert during speech comprehension.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 51%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The roles of fundamental frequency contours and sentence context in Mandarin Chinese speech intelligibility

Wang

Shu

Zhang

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Among nonhabitual conditions, both measures of F0 tended to be maximized in the hearing impaired condition, followed by the overenunciate condition and then the clear condition. Sentence-level F0 range has further been proposed to be of perceptual importance, whereby narrower ranges have been associated with a decrease in intelligibility (Binns & Culling, 2007;Bunton, Kent, Kent, & Rosenbek, 2000;Laures & Bunton, 2003;Laures & Weismer, 1999;Miller, Schlauch, & Watson, 2010;Mori, Kobayashi, Kasuya, Kobayashi, & Hirose, 2005;Spitzer, Liss, & Mattys, 2007;Watson & Schlauch, 2008). Thus, further investigating the acoustic-perceptual relationship between F0 and intelligibility is of importance in identifying the clear speech variants that best maximize intelligibility.…”

Section: Condition Effects: Suprasegmental Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clear Speech Variants: An Acoustic Study in Parkinson's Disease

Lam

Tjaden

2016

J Speech Lang Hear Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The authors investigated how different variants of clear speech affect segmental and suprasegmental acoustic measures of speech in speakers with Parkinson's disease and a healthy control group. Method A total of 14 participants with Parkinson's disease and 14 control participants served as speakers. Each speaker produced 18 different sentences selected from the Sentence Intelligibility Test (Yorkston & Beukelman, 1996). All speakers produced stimuli in 4 speaking conditions (habitual, clear, overenunciate, and hearing impaired). Segmental acoustic measures included vowel space area and first moment (M1) coefficient difference measures for consonant pairs. Second formant slope of diphthongs and measures of vowel and fricative durations were also obtained. Suprasegmental measures included fundamental frequency, sound pressure level, and articulation rate. Results For the majority of adjustments, all variants of clear speech instruction differed from the habitual condition. The overenunciate condition elicited the greatest magnitude of change for segmental measures (vowel space area, vowel durations) and the slowest articulation rates. The hearing impaired condition elicited the greatest fricative durations and suprasegmental adjustments (fundamental frequency, sound pressure level). Conclusions Findings have implications for a model of speech production for healthy speakers as well as for speakers with dysarthria. Findings also suggest that particular clear speech instructions may target distinct speech subsystems.

show abstract

“…Hazan and Markham (2004) and Barker and Cooke (2007) reported higher intelligibility of female talkers compared to males, which might have been due to the differences in acoustic consequences resulting from the differing gender-based vocal tract characteristics. Laures and Bunton (2003) and Watson and Schlauch (2008) found a flattened fundamental frequency (F0) contour within individual utterance negatively influences sentence recognition accuracy in noise. Vowel formant space expansion (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The contribution of changes in F0 and spectral tilt to increased intelligibility of speech produced in noise

Cooke

2009

Speech Communication

138

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To cite this version:Youyi Lu, Martin Cooke. The contribution of changes in F0 and spectral tilt to increased intelligibility of speech produced in noise. Speech Communication, Elsevier : North-Holland, 2009, 51 (12) This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT AbstractTalkers modify the way they speak in the presence of noise. As well as increases in voice level and fundamental frequency (F0), a flattening of spectral tilt is observed.The resulting "Lombard speech" is typically more intelligible than speech produced in quiet, even when level differences are removed. What is the cause of the enhanced intelligibility of Lombard speech? The current study explored the relative contributions to intelligibility of changes in mean F0 and spectral tilt. The roles of F0and spectral tilt were assessed by measuring the intelligibility gain of non-Lombard speech whose mean F0 and spectrum were manipulated, both independently and in concert, to simulate those of natural Lombard speech. In the presence of speechshaped noise, flattening of spectral tilt contributed greatly to the intelligibility gain of noise-induced speech over speech produced in quiet while an increase in F0 did not have a significant influence. The perceptual effects of spectrum flattening was attributed to its ability of increasing the amount of speech time-frequency plane "glimpsed" in the presence of noise. However, spectral tilt changes alone could not fully account for the intelligibility of Lombard speech. Other changes observed in Lombard speech such as durational modifications may well contribute to intelligibility.

show abstract

Perceptual effects of a flattened fundamental frequency at the sentence level under different listening conditions

Cited by 52 publications

References 33 publications

The roles of fundamental frequency contours and sentence context in Mandarin Chinese speech intelligibility

The roles of fundamental frequency contours and sentence context in Mandarin Chinese speech intelligibility

Clear Speech Variants: An Acoustic Study in Parkinson's Disease

The contribution of changes in F0 and spectral tilt to increased intelligibility of speech produced in noise

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About