title: Listener Perception of Monopitch, Naturalness, and Intelligibility for Speakers With Parkinson's Disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Given the potential significance of speech naturalness to functional and social rehabilitation outcomes, the objective of this study was to examine the effect of listener perceptions of monopitch on speech naturalness and intelligibility in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD).
  
  
  METHODS
  Two short utterances were extracted from monologue samples of 16 speakers with PD and 5 age-matched adults without PD. Sixteen listeners evaluated these stimuli for monopitch, speech naturalness and intelligibility using the visual sort and rate method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Naïve listeners can reliably judge monopitch, speech naturalness, and intelligibility with minimal familiarization. While monopitch and speech intelligibility were only moderately correlated, monopitch and speech naturalness were highly correlated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A great deal of attention is currently being paid to improvement of vocal loudness and thus speech intelligibility in PD. Our findings suggest that prosodic characteristics such as monopitch should be explored as adjuncts to this treatment of dysarthria in PD. Development of such prosodic treatments may enhance speech naturalness and thus improve quality of life.
authors.forename: Supraja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Anand
authors.forename: Cara E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Stepp
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014831:Voice