| Abstract: | Time-compressed or accelerated speech is speech which has been reproduced in less than the original production time. Such speech may prove to be useful in a variety of situations in which people must rely upon listening to obtain the information specified by language. It may also prove to be a useful tool in studying the temporal requirements of the listener as he processes spoken language. Methods for the generation of time compressed speech are reviewed. Methods for the assessment of the effect of compression on word intelligibility and listening comprehension are discussed. Experiments dealing with the effect of time compression upon word intelligibility and upon the comprehensibility of connected discourse, and experiments concerned with the influence of stimulus variables, such as signal distortion, and organismic variables such as intelligence, are reviewed. The general finding that compression in time has a different effect upon the comprehensibility of connected discourse than upon word intelligibility is discussed, and a tentative explanation of this difference is offered. (63 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
