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Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Vol.50 1241-1255 October 2007. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2007/087)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
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Talker Differences in Clear and Conversational Speech: Acoustic Characteristics of Vowels

Sarah Hargus Ferguson
Diane Kewley-Port
University of Kansas, Lawrence
Indiana University, Bloomington

Contact author: Sarah Hargus Ferguson, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences and Disorders, University of Kansas, Dole Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Room 3001, Lawrence, KS 66045-7555. E-mail: safergus{at}ku.edu.

Purpose: To determine the specific acoustic changes that underlie improved vowel intelligibility in clear speech.

Method: Seven acoustic metrics were measured for conversational and clear vowels produced by 12 talkers—6 who previously were found (S. H. Ferguson, 2004) to produce a large clear speech vowel intelligibility effect for listeners with normal hearing identifying vowels in background noise (the big benefit talkers), and 6 who produced no clear speech vowel intelligibility benefit (the no benefit talkers).

Results: For vowel duration and for certain measures of the overall acoustic vowel space, the change from conversational to clear speech was significantly greater for big benefit talkers than for no benefit talkers. For measures of formant dynamics, in contrast, the clear speech effect was similar for the 2 groups.

Conclusion: These results suggest that acoustic vowel space expansion and large vowel duration increases improve vowel intelligibility. In contrast, changing the dynamic characteristics of vowels seems not to contribute to improved clear speech vowel intelligibility. However, talker variability suggested that improved vowel intelligibility can be achieved using a variety of clear speech strategies, including some apparently not measured here.

KEY WORDS: speech perception, speech sound, acoustics


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