Experiments with high-back chairs and retroreflective surfaces for increasing the support of one’s own voice over short conversational distances

Abstract

Acoustic support of one’s own voice affects speech, and increased support can foster more relaxed voice projection, which reverses the Lombard effect. While hearing one’s own voice in typical rooms shows subtle influences of “global” room acoustics, local treatment can yield stronger effects for talking-listeners. This paper considers two types of architectural acoustic treatment for supporting one’s own voice and modifying speech propagation—high-back chairs and retroreflective ceilings. For a talking-listener, local acoustic treatment such as high-back chairs can be designed to selectively attenuate ambient noise while providing enhanced reception of sound from a particular direction, project speech towards a listener with increased gain for speech intelligibility, and also provide voice support. Acoustically retroreflective surfaces (e.g., ceilings and vertical partitions) provide increased voice support by reflecting a person’s voice back to them, without such local treatment. This also has the advant...