Room reverberation effects on recognition of some consonant features

Abstract

The effects of real room reverberation (T=0.75 sec) on speech sound recognition was investigated for young, normal-hearing subjects. Initial versus final and quiet versus reverberant results were significantly different. Place information was most affected, followed by frication. Stop and nasal information were next affected. Voicing was quite robust; and duration, sibilance, and liquid information were virtually unaffected. Several interesting confusion patterns emerged. Except for the relatively high susceptibility of frication, the effects of reverberation on speech recognition seem somewhat similar to that reported for masking and low-pass filtering. Reverberation appears to result in temporal smearing of the speech signal, so as to act as a speech-shaped masking noise. Also, short-duration events appear lengthened, and seem to be associated with stops being reported as fricatives; and relatively long temporal spreading of the fundamental and lower formants appears to be associated with stops being reported as nasals. Comparison of the results with previous data obtained with artificially induced reverberation revealed some qualitatively and quantitatively different effects.