The author describes his personal experience in the development and use of MINSPEAK, a synthesized voice communication aid which permits users to control pitch of individual phonemes, store sentences under pictures developed by the user, and vary types of sentences to be used. (MC)

The article presents the initial results of a study evaluating the intelligibility of the output of synthetic speech reading machines, using as Ss 30 patients (mean age 50) at a rehabilitation center. (PHR)

A number of studies reported that developmental dyslexics are impaired in speech perception, especially for speech signals consisting of rapid auditory transitions. These studies mostly made use of a categorical-perception task with synthetic-speech samples. In this study, we show that deficits in the perception of synthetic speech do not…

M. Pena, L. L. Bonatti, M. Nespor, and J. Mehler (see record 2002-06215-001) argued that humans compute nonadjacent statistical relations among syllables in a continuous artificial speech stream to extract words, but they use other computations to determine the structural properties of words. Instead, when participants are familiarized with a…

Purpose: The present study investigated the intelligibility of digitized and synthesized speech output in background noise for children 3-5 years old. The purpose of the study was to determine whether there was a difference in the intelligibility (ability to repeat) of 3 types of speech output (digitized, DECTalk synthesized, and MacinTalk…

BECAUSE THE INTERFERENCE FROM HIS NATIVE LANGUAGE CAUSES A LINGUIST TO HEAR AND IDENTIFY THE SOUNDS OF A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN TERMS OF HIS OWN, THE AUTHOR HAS PROPOSED A PROCEDURE DESIGNED TO (1) MAKE THE TASK OF PHONEMICIZING A LANGUAGE SHORT AND OBJECTIVE, (2) EQUATE THE PHONEMES OF A LANGUAGE WITH THE PERCEPTION OF THE USERS OF THAT LANGUAGE,…

Explores past uses of speech synthesis and outlines educational uses for the future, describing new features that allow considerable control of speech output. Indicates that because of the speech capabilities, nonreaders may no longer be denied access to the computer due to limited reading skills. (JN)

Laryngectomized patients using esophageal speech or an electronic artificial larynx have difficulty producing correct voicing contrasts between homorganic consonants. This paper describes a therapy technique that emphasizes "pushing harder" on voiceless consonants to improve alaryngeal speech intelligibility and proposes focusing on the…

This paper is concerned with the process of human reading as a high-level perceptual task. Drawing on insights from artificial-intelligence research--specifically, research in natural language processing and continuous speech understanding--the paper attempts to present a fairly concrete picture of the kinds of hypothesis formation and inference…

The use of braille as the primary means of achieving literacy among the blind and severely visually impaired has lessened in recent years. Synthetic speech and talking books have taken the place of braille as the primary sources of information. Some reasons for the lack of growth in readership are failure to produce those materials most wanted by…

Outlines an approach for studying auditory levels in speech perception, focusing on the artificial speech understanding system that is most compatible with the experimental data obtained in speech perception research. (RL)

The study examined the relationship between induced mood states of elation or depression and interviewee verbal behavior. Affective states were manipulated by an autosuggestion technique (mood induction procedure). Subjects were 45 female college students, assigned to treatment conditions of elation, depression, or neutral mood induction. Data…

Reviews various current experimental attempts to induce a form of human language in chimpanzees and concludes that research results indicate that only Homo Sapiens are capable of mastering human forms of communication. (MH)

Computerized speech could enhance the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction as an educational tool. Digital audio under computer control allows a very wide range of replies, but it poses special problems in the areas of listener attitudes and speaker intelligibility. This paper discusses the design and implementation of special tests to…