Speech Intelligibility During Exercise at Normal and Increased Atmospheric Pressures

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of work loads at increased ambient pressures on speech intelligibility. Six subjects were exposed to depths equivalent to 0, 50, 100 and 150 feet of sea water. At each depth, the subjects recorded one 25 word PB list at each of four work loads, 0, 50, 100 and 150 watts. Subjects were exercised on an ergometer and pedalling was maintained at the desired work load by monitoring a preset metronome. The recordings were played to naive listening panels to obtain speech intelligibility scores. The results indicate that at rest, speech intelligibility decreases by approximately 20 per cent from surface to 150 feet. With the addition of a work load, there is an additional drop in intelligibility; however, intelligibility does not continue to decrease as work load increases.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 09, 1972
Accession Number
AD0749321

Entities

People

  • Edward J. Nelson
  • Edward W. Swenson
  • Thomas Murry

Organizations

  • Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Barometric Pressure
  • Communication Systems
  • Ergometers
  • Heart Rate
  • High Pressure
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Hyperbaric Chambers
  • Microphones
  • Monitoring
  • Navy
  • Physiological Effects
  • Physiology
  • Power Levels
  • Sea Water
  • Tape Recorders
  • Water
  • Word Lists

Readers

  • Exercise and Sports Science.
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.