Intelligibility, phonetic distortion, and listener consensus in the speech of hearing‐impaired talkers

Abstract

Recorded speech from 29 hearing‐impaired and four normal‐hearing speakers was reviewed by two trained phoneticians. Selected segments of the speech were judged according to 14 phonetic attributes such as consonant manner and place, vowel fronting, and breathiness. Magner intelligibility scores for the hearing‐impaired speakers were also available. A feature‐based perceptual distance measure was constructed and used to specify both the degree of phonetic accuracy of the speech and the level of consensus in listener judgments. Analysis of these data reveals strong direct relationships between phonetic accuracy, Magner intelligibility scores, and listener consensus. Analysis of the consensus data according to feature type indicates that listeners may perceive manner features most reliably, with stress, place, and voicing features perceived with successively less reliability (i.e., consensus). [Work supported by NIH.]