Analysis of Listeners’ Summaries of Synthesized Speech Passages

The purpose of this investigation was to specify the kinds of miscomprehensions produced by individuals listening to synthetic speech. In the first study, 80 written summaries of synthesized speech passages were analyzed to determine the types of miscomprehensions or linguistic departures made by listeners when attempting to recall the spoken texts. These departures were classified according to their linguistic departure type (insertion, recast, reduction, substitution, paraphrase) and level (phonemic, lexical, phrase, clause, discourse). Linguistic departures were studied as to their role in miscomprehension and their ability to reveal listener comprehension strategies. In a second study, 159 written summaries were analyzed according to their primary departure type and then analyzed for their relation to speech synthesis voice quality, presentation rate, and scores from a global rating of discourse summarization accuracy. Three “clusters” emerged from these analyses, reflecting an association between specific linguistic departures with the above variables. Research and clinical implications of the linguistic departure procedure are discussed.