Perception of stress and speaking style for selected elements of the SUSAS database
The Speech Under Simulated and Actual Stress (SUSAS) database is a collection of utterances recorded under conditions of simulated or actual stress, the purpose of which is to allow researchers to study the effects of stress and speaking style on the speech waveform. The aim of the present investigation was to assess the perceptual validity of the simulated portion of the database by determining the extent to which listeners classify its utterances according to their assigned labels. Seven listeners performed an eight-alternative, forced-choice response, judging whether monosyllabic or disyllabic words spoken by talkers from three different regional accent classes (Boston, General American, New York) were best classified as, clear, fast, loud, neutral, question, slow, or soft. Mean percentages of correct judgments were analysed using a 3 (regional accent class)2 (number of syllables)8 (speaking style) repeated measures analysis of variance. Results indicate that, overall, listeners correctly classify the utterances only 58% of the time, and that the percentage of correct classifications varies as a function of all three independent variables.
susas stressed speech speech perception speech recognition