Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Naturalness in Speakers of Varying Gender Identities

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2054-2069
Author(s):  
Brandon Merritt ◽  
Tessa Bent
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Rating Task ◽  
Gender Identification ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Perceptual Evaluation ◽  
Speech Training ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Speech Naturalness

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how speech naturalness relates to masculinity–femininity and gender identification (accuracy and reaction time) for cisgender male and female speakers as well as transmasculine and transfeminine speakers. Method Stimuli included spontaneous speech samples from 20 speakers who are transgender (10 transmasculine and 10 transfeminine) and 20 speakers who are cisgender (10 male and 10 female). Fifty-two listeners completed three tasks: a two-alternative forced-choice gender identification task, a speech naturalness rating task, and a masculinity/femininity rating task. Results Transfeminine and transmasculine speakers were rated as significantly less natural sounding than cisgender speakers. Speakers rated as less natural took longer to identify and were identified less accurately in the gender identification task; furthermore, they were rated as less prototypically masculine/feminine. Conclusions Perceptual speech naturalness for both transfeminine and transmasculine speakers is strongly associated with gender cues in spontaneous speech. Training to align a speaker's voice with their gender identity may concurrently improve perceptual speech naturalness. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12543158

The Influence of Speaker and Listener Gender on Speech Naturalness Ratings: A Methodological Control Study

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (Fall) ◽  
pp. 106-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Ermlich ◽  
Dale Evan Metz ◽  
Nicholas Schiavetti ◽  
Robert L. Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Control Study ◽  
Speech Naturalness

scholarly journals Listener Perception of Monopitch, Naturalness, and Intelligibility for Speakers With Parkinson's Disease

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 1134-1144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Supraja Anand ◽  
Cara E. Stepp
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Potential Significance ◽  
Rehabilitation Outcomes ◽  
Rate Method ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Short Utterances ◽  
Speech Naturalness

PurposeGiven the potential significance of speech naturalness to functional and social rehabilitation outcomes, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of listener perceptions of monopitch on speech naturalness and intelligibility in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD).MethodTwo short utterances were extracted from monologue samples of 16 speakers with PD and 5 age-matched adults without PD. Sixteen listeners evaluated these stimuli for monopitch, speech naturalness and intelligibility using the visual sort and rate method.ResultsNaïve listeners can reliably judge monopitch, speech naturalness, and intelligibility with minimal familiarization. While monopitch and speech intelligibility were only moderately correlated, monopitch and speech naturalness were highly correlated.ConclusionsA great deal of attention is currently being paid to improvement of vocal loudness and thus speech intelligibility in PD. Our findings suggest that prosodic characteristics such as monopitch should be explored as adjuncts to this treatment of dysarthria in PD. Development of such prosodic treatments may enhance speech naturalness and thus improve quality of life.

Effect of Speech Dialect on Speech Naturalness Ratings

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda S. Mackey ◽  
Patrick Finn ◽  
Roger J. Ingham
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
The Third ◽  
Speech Naturalness

This study investigated the effect of speech dialect on listeners' speech naturalness ratings by systematically replicating Martin, Haroldson, and Triden's (1984) study using three groups of speaker samples. Two groups consisted of speakers with General American dialect—one with persons who stutter and the other with persons who do not stutter. The third group also consisted of speakers who do not stutter but who spoke non-General American dialect. The results showed that speech naturalness ratings distinguished among the three speaker groups. The variables that appeared to influence speech naturalness ratings were type of dialect, speech fluency, and speaking rate, though they differed across speaker groups. The findings also suggested that strength of speech dialect may be a scaleable dimension that judges can rate with acceptable levels of reliability. Dialect may also be an important factor that needs to be incorporated or controlled within systems designed to train speech naturalness ratings. It may also be an important factor in determining the extent to which stuttering treatment produces natural sounding speech.

The effects of differential vowel prolongations on perceptions of speech naturalness

2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Schaeffer ◽  
Nechama Eichorn
Keyword(s):  
Speech Naturalness
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