Perception of intonational contrasts in alaryngeal speech

The achievement of intonational contrasts by 4 normal and 16 laryngectomized speakers was assessed in this project. The laryngectomized subjects represented four clinical subgroups of alaryngeal speech: esophageal, tracheoesophageal, Western Electric #5 electrolarynx, and Servox electrolarynx. High-quality tape recordings of each subject's productions of two pairs of sentences (Bev loves Bob) spoken in statement and question from were presented to 40 listeners for evaluation using a two-interval-alternative-forced-choice procedure. Intonational contrasts were achieved in a highly effective manner by the normal, esophageal, and tracheoesophageal speakers. In contrast, users of electronic artificial larynges were generally unable to achieve these intonational distinctions except for one user of the Western Electric #5 electrolarynx.