Speech modifications in interactive speech: effects of age, sex and noise type

When attempting to maintain conversations in noisy communicative settings, talkers typically modify their speech to make themselves understood by the listener. In this study, we investigated the impact of background interference type and talker age on speech adaptations, vocal effort and communicative success. We measured speech acoustics (articulation rate, mid-frequency energy, fundamental frequency), vocal effort (correlation between mid-frequency energy and fundamental frequency) and task completion time in 114 participants aged 8-80 years carrying out an interactive problem-solving task in good and noisy listening conditions (quiet, non-speech noise, background speech). We found greater changes in fundamental frequency and mid-frequency energy in non-speech noise than in background speech and similar reductions in articulation rate in both. However, older participants (50+ years) increased vocal effort in both background interference types, whereas younger children (less than 13 years) increased vocal effort only in background speech. The presence of background interference did not lead to longer task completion times. These results suggest that when the background interference involves a higher cognitive load, as in the case of other speech of other talkers, children and older talkers need to exert more vocal effort to ensure successful communication. We discuss these findings within the communication effort framework. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)'.