Speech privacy in closed offices: Comparison of languages and accent

Abstract

Up to now, most objective assessments for speech privacy and speech intelligibility, such as articulation index (AI), speech intelligibility index (SII), early-to-late sound ratio (Clarity), and speech transmission index (STI), are evaluated by subjective measurements primarily based on studies that incorporate only the English language. In today’s multicultural environment, it is necessary to study the impact on speech privacy of different languages and accents. In this work, subjective measurements were conducted in closed offices by using English, Mandarin Chinese (a tonal language), and accented English. Both close-set and open-set test materials, including single words, sentences, and articles were employed in the measurement. The results revealed the evaluation differences in speech privacy between two languages, as well as between native English and accented English. The subjective measurement results were also compared with the objective measurement indices AI, STI, and Clarity.