In today's society, good communication skills are an important cornerstone of successful communication. Whether it is face-to-face communication, or through telephone, video conferencing, etc., clear voice expression is the key to effective communication. However, what factors affect speech intelligibility? This article will take a closer look at the various factors that influence speech intelligibility and its importance in improving communication effectiveness.
Speech intelligibility is a measure of speech intelligibility under specific conditions and is affected by many factors.
Speech is considered the primary form of communication between humans. It is complex and is often influenced by multiple factors, such as age, gender, native language, and the social relationship between the speaker and the listener. These factors not only affect how we speak, but also our ability to understand the speech of others.
Generally, speech intelligibility is affected by physiological and psychological factors, including pathological phenomena such as speech and hearing disorders. In addition, the impact of the environment cannot be ignored, such as background noise, reverberation level and the performance of communication equipment, which are all key factors affecting speech intelligibility.
Background noise and excessive reverberation can negatively impact speech intelligibility, and the speech signal-to-noise ratio is an important indicator.
Noise is a common distractor that can significantly reduce speech clarity. In general, when the background noise level is between 35dB and 100dB, to achieve 100% speech intelligibility, the signal-to-noise ratio usually needs to reach 12dB, which means that the speech signal is about four times louder than the background noise. .
The frequency range of speech signals is usually from 200Hz to 8000Hz, while the human ear's hearing range is 20Hz to 20,000Hz, so different noise frequencies have different effects on speech intelligibility. For example, constant white noise and changing communication noise (such as multiple talkers talking) have different effects on speech intelligibility.
Reverberation can blur speech signals, and although it can enhance the duration of vowels, it can mask the changes in some phonemes.
With the evolution of society, people's voice expression has gradually adapted to different environmental needs. The following are several common speech types and their intelligibility characteristics:
The human brain automatically adjusts the way we speak in noisy environments, a phenomenon known as the Lombard effect. This type of speech not only has a higher volume, but also has more audio components and longer duration of vowels, making it more intelligible than normal speech in a noisy environment.
Yelling is less intelligible than Lombard speech because the increased acoustic energy reduces the phonemic information. However, through processing techniques, the intelligibility of yelling speech can approach that of normal speech under certain conditions.
When communicating with a hearing-impaired person, clear speech is the most common choice, and features include slower speaking rates, more and longer pauses, increased speech intensity, and targeted vowel forms, all of which have Helps increase speech intelligibility.
Infant-specific speech typically uses simplified grammar and easy-to-understand vocabulary, with a higher pitch range and slower speech rate than adult speech, which helps promote infant language learning and comprehension.
This is a type of speech that occurs when certain speech studies are being conducted, usually with a slower speaking rate and less continuous speech, which is designed to help improve the intelligibility of the speech.
ConclusionIn order to improve speech clarity, in addition to paying attention to the speaker's pronunciation skills, we also need to be aware of the impact of environmental factors on speech. With the development of technology, optimizing communication equipment to increase speech intelligibility has become a part of contemporary communication. How can we promote smoother and more effective communication through in-depth understanding of voice characteristics and application of techniques?