According to various studies, people psychologically will change their voice level, voice tonality, vowel duration, and interval tempo to improve their speech intelligibility in a bad listening situation. What are those bad listening situations?

First, there are two technical factors that reduce speech intelligibility and word recognition: (i) the quality of the acoustic environments such as background noise and reverberation time of the space, (ii) the quality of the sound system. Second, there are two human factors that reduce speech intelligibility and word recognition: (i) the speakers’ speech quality such as low voice level, bad phonetic, muddy tonality, or talk too fast (ii) the hearing quality of the listeners.

To improve speech intelligibility and words recognition, there are six speech types that humans decide to do while talking in a bad acoustical situation or bad sounding sound system or while talking to a human with hearing impaired. In a bad technical situation such as acoustic or sound system, there are the three types of speech that people usually do in order to increase their speech intelligibility.

Lombard speech

The human brain automatically changes speech made in noise through a process called the Lombard Effect. Such speech has increased intelligibility compared to normal speech. It is not only louder but the frequencies of its phonetic fundamental are increased and the duration of its vowels are prolonged. People also tend to make more noticeable facial movements. 

Hyperspace speech

Hyperspace speech, also known as the hyperspace effect, occurs when people are misled about the presence of environmental noise. It involves modifying the F1 and F2 of phonetic vowel targets to ease perceived difficulties on the part of the listener in recovering information from the acoustic signal.

Screaming speech

Shouted speech is less intelligible than Lombard speech because increased vocal energy produces decreased phonetic information. However, "infinite peak clipping of shouted speech makes it almost as intelligible as normal speech."

And when speaking to elder people that have a hearing impaired there are the three types of speech that people usually do in order to increase their speech intelligibility to improve the listener word recognition.

Clear speech

Clear speech is used when talking to a person with a hearing impairment. It is characterized by a slower speaking rate, more and longer pauses, elevated speech intensity, increased word duration, "targeted" vowel formants, increased consonant intensity compared to adjacent vowels, and a number of phonological changes (including fewer reduced vowels and more released stop bursts).

Infant-directed speech

Infant-directed speech — or baby talk — uses a simplified syntax and a small and easier-to-understand vocabulary than speech directed to adults. Compared to adult-directed speech, it has a higher fundamental frequency, exaggerated pitch range, and slower rate.

Citation speech

Citation speech occurs when people engage self-consciously in spoken language research. It has a slower tempo and fewer connected speech processes (e.g., shortening of nuclear vowels, devoicing of word-final consonants) than normal speech.

Do you want to improve your communication quality, and do not know where to start?

We’re ALTA Integra, a team of acoustic and audio experts who are dedicated to helping people with a bad technical listening situation. Our mission is to help people hear better in every situation. If you have trouble understanding what others are saying because of noise, echo, bad sound system we can help!

We offer a range of products that will make it easier for you to communicate clearly in any environment. Whether it’s at home, work, school, or worship hall – our services will give you back the ability to understand what’s being said around you so that life becomes more enjoyable again. Nobody shouldn’t have to feel missed out because of a bad sound situation! Let us show you how much better life can be when you can bring communication back to life again. It's time for change - let's get started today!

Click the contact button on the upper right now and schedule an appointment with one of our team today!