Clear speech benefits for perception of center-only and edge-only syllables

Abstract

Clear speech is a speaking style that has been shown to enhance intelligibility in noise; however, the underlying reasons for this enhancement are less well understood. One hypothesis is that listeners require less acoustic information to identify syllables spoken in clear than in conversational speech, allowing them to make use of briefer dips in fluctuating noise. The present study tests this hypothesis by presenting six /bVd/ syllables (“bead, bid, bed, bayed, bad,” and “bod”), produced in clear and conversational speech styles, to 20 monolingual native English-speaking listeners in a six-alternative forced-choice task. These syllables were modified to present varying portions of the syllable to listeners (20, 40, 60, or 80 ms of the syllable preserved). First, center-only syllables were created, in which acoustic information around the vowel midpoint was preserved. Second, edge-only syllables were created, in which information from the vowel center was silenced and formant transitions preserved, with ...