Perceptual judgments of modified deaf speech

Abstract

The perceptual effects of modifying speech produced by deaf talkers were investigated to examine, in part, the changes necessary for disordered speech to be judged normal. Recordings of the rainbow passage produced by a number of deaf male speakers were studied and three passages judged to be moderately disordered were selected. The word “beautiful” was extracted from these passages and from a similar passage recorded by a hearing talker. Each of the deaf talkers' productions was paired with the normal production to make two types of continua. One type was based on a time warping of the disordered speech to fit the temporal structure of the normal speech, while the other was based on a time warping of the normal speech to the temporal structure of the disordered speech. Each continuum contained ten steps, ranging from disordered to normal spectral properties. Graduate students in the fields of speech and hearing judged whether the stimuli sounded normal or disordered. Continua based on the normal talker's...