ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1999
ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1999

Hyper-articulated speech: auditory and visual intelligibility

Denis Beautemps, Pascal Borel, Sébastien Manolios

In the field of speech adaptability to environmental conditions, the intelligibility of hyper auditory and visual speech versus normal speech was investigated. The « Lombard » reflex was used to obtain auditory sequences produced with vocal effort for a set of French /b, d, g, p, t, k/ plosives. Analysis of plosive identifications showed an improvement with the auditory hyper condition in the plosive place of articulation for dentals and velars. Instruction to produce hyper-visual speech provided hyper-articulated labial movements for a set of French /a, i, y/ vowels and /b, v, z, J, l, r/ consonants. Analysis of visual identification scores showed a gain for the hyper-visual condition on the /i/ versus /a/ contrast, but to the detriment of identification of lip movement for consonants - results which were moreover confirmed by the lip shape analysis.