Familiarization Effects on Consonant Intelligibility in Dysarthric Speech

This study investigates the effects of familiarization on naïve listeners' ability to identify consonants in dysarthric speech.

A total of 120 listeners (30 listeners/speaker) participated in experiments over a 6-week period. Listeners were randomly assigned to one of the three familiarization conditions: a passive condition in which listeners heard audio recordings of words, an active condition in which listeners heard audio recordings of words while viewing the written material of words, and a control condition in which listeners had no exposure to the audio signal prior to identification tasks.

Familiarization improved naïve listeners' ability to identify consonants produced by a speaker with dysarthria. The active familiarization method exhibited an advantage over the other conditions, in terms of the magnitude and rapidness of improvement. One-month delayed test scores were higher than pre-familiarization scores, but the advantage of active familiarization was not present for all speakers.

This study supports familiarization benefits in enhancing consonant intelligibility in dysarthria and suggests that perceptual learning mechanisms be harnessed for developing effective listener-oriented intervention techniques in the management of dysarthria. Current findings call for further research on a familiarization protocol that can subserve segmental learning with maximum efficacy.