The effect of task on speech production and conversation behavior during conversation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how native-English, healthy-hearing individuals adapt their speech production and conversation behavior in the presence of noise and how this can vary based on conversational goal. Pairs of participants engaged in both free-form conversations as well as conversations based on solving a task (a “spot the difference” task using the Diapix UK pictures). Although seated in separate rooms, talkers could communicate via headset microphones and headphones with gains set to simulate levels that would be present if they were seated in the same room. The effects of task and noise on measures of speech production (e.g., articulation rate, speech level, etc.) and conversational behaviors (e.g. floor transfer offsets, turn length, etc.) are investigated. These results provide insights into how to infer listening effort via acoustical measures of communication in a broader range of settings.