title: Evidence of cue use and performance differences in deciphering dysarthric speech.
abstract: There is substantial performance variability among listeners who transcribe degraded speech. Error patterns from 88 listeners who transcribed dysarthric speech were examined to identify differential use of syllabic strength cues for lexical segmentation. Transcripts from listeners were divided into four groups (ranging from Better- to Poorer- performing). Phrases classified as Higher- and Lower-intelligibility were analyzed separately for each performance group to assess the independent variable of severity. Results revealed that all four listener groups used syllabic strength cues for lexical segmentation of Higher-intelligibility speech, but only the Poorer listeners persisted with this strategy for the Lower-intelligibility phrases. This finding and additional analyses suggest testable hypotheses to address the role of cue-use and performance patterns.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Disorders, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 358 North Pleasant, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA. ychoe@comdis.umass.edu
authors.forename: Yu-kyong
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.forename: Julie M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Liss
authors.forename: Tamiko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Azuma
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mathy
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004401:Dysarthria / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010700:Phonetics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult