Acceptability of text-to-speech systems: Its quantification using magnitude estimtion and its relationship to intelligibility and naturalness in various degrees of distortion
Chaslav V. Pavlovic, Mario Rossi, Robert Espesser · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1988
Because there are no physical measurements that quantify perceptual attributes of synthesized speech, subjective tests must be used. In this project the possibility of directly scaling acceptability via magnitude estimation is assessed. One hundred and twenty subjects took part in the study. Seven different synthesizers and three types of background noise were employed. The results are discussed in light of the following questions. (1) What is the relationship between acceptability on one hand and naturalness and intelligibility on the other in various degrees of distortion? (2) Are the objective intelligibility scores and subjective magnitude estimations highly correlated in all conditions? (3) Do the relative ratings produced by different groups of subjects agree? (4) Are the ratings on an absolute scale? (5) Are the ratings invariant to the stimulus set and range size? (6) Are the ratings practice invariant? (7) Do the ratings depend on the subject's familiarity with the test material?