Intelligibility of Alternated Speech
Terry T. Trooien, Charles Speaks · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1973
The intelligibility of interaurally alternated speech was measured by two methods: shadowing and subjective rating. The first of two experiments used speech spoken at a normal rate; the second experiment used fast-rate speech. With normal-rate speech, shadowing scores and estimates of intelligibility by eight subjects were nearly 100% for eight different rates of alternation between 1 and 10 aps. Estimates of intelligibility for fast-rate speech were depressed slightly from 100% and shadowing scores were near 70% for most rates of alternation. No particular alternation rate or region of alternation rates produced significantly depressed shadowing scores. The results convince us that interaural alternation of speech does not affect intelligibility unless the speech is spoken at a very rapid rate. Even with fast-rate speech, however, intelligibility is not dependent in any meaningful sense on the rate of alternation.