PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SPEECH PROCESSING DEVICES. 2. THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Abstract
The report treats three topics related to the phenomenon of individual differences in speech: (1) the effect upon speech intelligibility of the listener's familiarity with the speaker's voice; (2) the nature and number of elementary ways, or PAT's (perceived acoustic traits) in which voices are perceived to differ from each other; (3) the physical bases of perceived acoustic traits. Speech intelligibility as measured by the Diagnostic Rhyme Test was unaffected by the degree of the listener's familiarity with the speaker's voice, where the basis of faimiliarity was a maximum of three presentations of a two-minute sample of prose. A voice rating experiment, involving both mono-polar and bi-polar ratings scales failed to reveal any previously unidentified PAT's. A factor analysis of 22 physical and perceptual voice variables yielded results to indicate that the physical correlates of some PAT's may be qualitatively shifted under certain conditions of stimulus impoverishment. The physical bases of the PAT's, Pitch-Magnitude and Animation- Rate appear to be relatively stable under various conditions of stimulus impoverishment, but the physical bases of Loudness-Roughness and Clarity-Beauty may be drastically altered by frequency distortion and vocoderization.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1965
- Accession Number
- AD0630428
Entities
People
- William D. Voiers
Organizations
- Sperry Corporation