Re: Intelligibility of reversed speech, Why? (=?X-UNKNOWN?Q?T=F3th_L=E1szl=F3?= )

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 13:37:37 +0100

On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Ward Drennan wrote:

> Are you asking how does intelligibility (measured as percent correct)
> vary as a function of the duration T of the window of reversal?

It is an interesting question indeed, but I was trying to talk generally.
That is, not only about time-reversal, but also any other possible
manipulations of speech.

> Acoustic information in speech is redundant, of course, but certainly,
> as information (a cue of any sort) was removed or otherwise
> blurred, you would expect the intelligibility to decrease for a given
> S/N ratio.
>
No. Redundancy means that under a given condition (e.g. S/N ratio) you
don't necessarily need ALL the cues for perfect comprehension. That is,
you can remove some cues without decreasing intelligibility. However,
under some other conditions the same cue may be vital.
To put it another way: how can you tell that something you removed from
the signal was or wasn't a cue? My point was that you cannot state this
for sure from examining its effect under only one possible condition, put
you have to examine all possible conditions.
I hope this helps enlight my thinking.

               Laszlo Toth
        Hungarian Academy of Sciences         *      "The truth hurts.
  Research Group on Artificial Intelligence   *       But lies kill."
     e-mail: tothl(at)inf.u-szeged.hu            *
     http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~tothl        *