Perception of pre-vocalic and post-vocalic consonants produced by tracheoesophageal speakers.

The purpose of this project was to investigate the perception of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) stimuli produced by four tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers. Stimuli were representative of five phonetic manner classes (stop, fricative, affricate, nasal, and liquidglide). Twelve naive normal-hearing young adults served as listeners. Stimuli were presented via headphones and listeners were prepared and analyses of the data were conducted for individual speakers and for the entire group. The listeners' perceptual judgments were analyzed for each manner of production by phonetic context. Based on statistical analyses of the data obtained, all four speakers were perceived by listeners to produce post-vocalic consonants with significantly better intelligibility.

Effects of listener sophistication on judgements of tracheoesophageal talker intelligibility.

The purpose of this project was to provide preliminary data on comparative judgments of tracheoesophageal (TE) speech intelligibility by two groups of listeners who varied in their listening sophistication. Four highly proficient TE talkers produced the stimuli for the study. Stimuli represented all consonant manner classes in both pre- and postvocalic contexts. The two listener groups were composed of 10 naive listeners and 10 experienced speech pathologists. Data from each listener group was analyzed for overall intelligibility and intelligibility by pre- and postvocalic phonetic position. Scores were also quantified by phonetic manner class. Statistically significant differences were identified between judgments of the two listener groups for prevocalic stops and fricatives. Experienced listeners did, however, generally judge talkers to exhibit higher intelligibility compared to naive listeners. The potential clinical implications of these data are discussed.