We tried to demonstrate the possibilities of enhancing speech perception of adult Japanese learners of English, particularly university students and university graduates. Perceptual experiments reported here used normal speech stimulus and dynamic range compressed together with time-scale expanded speech stimulus to compare the enhancement observed in subject's processing. In the latter stimulus, frequencies more than or equal to 2 [kHz] were amplified in the very beginning of a sentence (200 [ms]) and the whole sentence is expanded to produce an enhanced speech. Subjects' listening performances were objectively measured with the technique developed by Nakayama. It is epoch-making in that there is no such objective measurement technique of listening comprehension of foreign languages. At least, there is no prevalent technique. The experiment partially demonstrated the hypothesis that expanded speech was easier for them to listen to than normal speech. Optimization of parameters such as the scope of amplification, the frequencies amplification is applied to and the rate of time-scale modification should be further studied to demonstrate the hypotheses impeccably.
Cite as: Nakayama, K., Tomita-Nakayama, K., Misaki, M. (1998) Enhancing speech perception of Japanese learners of English utilizing time-scale modification of speech and related techniques. Proc. ETRW on Speech Technology in Language Learning (STiLL), 123-126
@inproceedings{nakayama98_still,
author={K. Nakayama and K. Tomita-Nakayama and M. Misaki},
title={{Enhancing speech perception of Japanese learners of English utilizing time-scale modification of speech and related techniques}},
year=1998,
booktitle={Proc. ETRW on Speech Technology in Language Learning (STiLL)},
pages={123--126}
}