Publication Date

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Committee Members

Misty Blue (Advisor), Yan Liu (Committee Member), Blair Rowley (Committee Member)

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering (MSEgr)

Abstract

Effective and efficient speech communication is one of the leading factors for success of battlefield operation. With the increases in the levels of gender diversity in military services, it is important to assess the effectiveness of voice for both genders in communication systems. The purpose of this research study was to determine the effect of the speaker's voice (male and female) on the speech intelligibility (SI) performance of the Callsign Acquisition Test (CAT). In addition, the effects of synthesized speech were evaluated. The CAT test is a new SI test that has been developed for military use. A group of 21 listeners with normal hearing participated in the study. Each participant listened to four different lists of CAT (male and female natural recorded speech, and male and female synthetic speech) at two signal-to-noise ratios. White noise was used as a masking noise and various speech files were mixed at signal-to-noise ratios -12 dB and -15 dB. Each wordlist was played at 50dB and 53dB mixed with white noise at 65dB. Each listener participated in a total of 8 tests presented in a random fashion. Testing was performed in a sound treated booth with loud speakers. Test results demonstrated that male speech and natural voice have higher SI results than female speech and synthetic voice respectively. Also statistical analysis concluded that female speech, -15 dB SNR, synthetic voice, and combination effect of female speech and synthetic voice all have significant effect on CAT test results in the presence of white noise. All tests used significance levels alpha = 0.5.

Page Count

44

Department or Program

Department of Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering

Year Degree Awarded

2009

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