The effects of training on intelligibility of synthetic speech: II. The learning curve for synthetic speech

Abstract

This paper presents the second part of a report on the changes in intelligibility of synthetic speech produced by training. Two groups of subjects received training between the pre-test and post-test assessments of the intelligibility of the Votrax Type-N-Talk system. One group was explicitly trained on the synthetic speech. The second group received the same training procedures with natural speech. During training, subjects were presented with isolated words, meaningful and anomalous sentences, and prose passages. On each trial for words and sentences after identifying the stimulus, subjects were presented with feedback of a visual presentation of the stimulus and a second auditory presentation. For the first prose passage, subjects were given a printed version to read during auditory presentation of the passage. Subjects listened to three other passages without a printed version and then answered comprehension questions. Accuracy of word identification and response latency and accuracy to comprehension questions were recorded. Based on these data we will discuss the time-course of learning to perceive synthetic speech more accurately.