Using landmark detection to measure effective clear speech

While the relationship of speaking style to intelligibility under challenging conditions has been established, it is a common observation that some speakers seem to be more intelligible than others for most listeners. In previous work, we have reported that automatic measures based on the technique of Landmark Detection appear to track differences between Clear and Conversational speaking style. One question that remains is whether Landmark measures can be used to predict which speakers are most likely to produce highly intelligible speech. In this study, we took advantage of a set of previously acquired databases covering a total of 31 American English speakers who produced Clear and Conversational Speech to examine correlations between our Landmark-based measures and the Clear Speech productions of highly intelligible speech. Across these databases, we had data on intelligibility for 13 speakers. Results showed that speakers with high overall intelligibility in Clear Speech showed significantly different patterns on Landmark-based automatic measures, compared to speakers with more moderate performance on intelligibility measures. Applications of these results to problems in speech technology, linguistic education, and clinical practice will be discussed.