Jean-Pierre Gagne
Ecole d'Orthophonie et d'Audiologie, Universite de Montreal, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7, Canada
Anne-Josee Rochette
Universite de Montreal, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7, Canada
The visual speech intelligibility of /C--v/ and /C--v--C/ syllables spoken under conversational-like and clear speech conditions was compared. The syllables consisted of voiced consonants, varying in place of articulation (i.e., /b,d,g,v,z,j/), presented in three vowel contexts (/a,i,u/). Talkers were six female adults, and each produced four iterations of the stimulus set for each of the two speaking conditions. The 1728 videotaped items (36 syllables x2 manners of speech x4 iterations x6 talkers) were edited, randomized, and shown (without sound) to viewers with normal hearing. Viewers' completed a consonant-recognition task and these data were used to determine a visual speech-intelligibility score for each stimulus set produced under the conversational and clear speech conditions. Results revealed that, despite significant within-talker variability in both speaking conditions, significantly higher speech intelligibility scores were observed for the production of clear speech. A significant talker effect, and a talker x manner interaction also emerged. The magnitude of the clear speech effects and the within- and across-talker variability in visual-speech intelligibility will be discussed.