ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014

The interaction of accent and boundary tone in perception of whispered speech

Willemijn Heeren, Vincent van Heuven

We investigated how the perception of Dutch whispered boundary tones depends on the presence of an accent in the utterance-final word, i.e. the boundary tone landing site. Listeners performed near ceiling in normal speech, whereas the same listeners’ performance dropped about 30% in whisper, while processing speed decreased in whisper compared to normal speech. Accent position furthermore influenced boundary tone perception. Initial-stress words showed a question bias that affected recognition of that speech act when accent and boundary tone did not coincide. On final-stress words, in which boundary tone and accent coincided, statements and questions were identified equally well.