Subject: Re: Intelligibility of reversed speech, Why? From: =?X-UNKNOWN?Q?T=F3th_L=E1szl=F3?= <tothl(at)INF.U-SZEGED.HU> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:57:23 +0100On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Yadong Wang wrote: > local time reversal does not destroy intelligibility, > Can somebody tell me how exactly the statement "transformation T does not destroy the intelligibility of speech" is defined?? I think one should be very careful with such a statement. My idea is that speech cues are redundant. This means that after the removal of one cue the speech signal may retain its intelligibility - under the given cirsumstance (e.g. quiet environment). This does not necessarily mean that the removed cue would not help intelligibility under different circumstances (e.g. in noise). So I think that the statement "transformation T does not destroy the intelligibility of speech" should be defined as "sentence X and sentence T[X] has the same intelligibility UNDER ANY POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES". (Let's measure "same intelligibility" using some well-defined psychoacoustic experiment). To put it an inverted way, "transformation T DOES dicrease intelligibility if there is at least one experimental setting in which the intelligibility of the transformed signal is decreased compared to the original one." I would apply this definition to the good old statement about the phase deafness of the ear. Was it ever exhaustively and thoroughly examined that phase information under no circumstances can serve as a cue and increase intelligibility? Any opinions? (and sorry for thinking as a mathematician, but I can't do it any other way :-) ) Laszlo Toth Hungarian Academy of Sciences * Research Group on Artificial Intelligence * "Failure only begins e-mail: tothl(at)inf.u-szeged.hu * when you stop trying" http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl *