Speaker: Brian Langner
Title: Speech In Noise, and How it Affects the Understandability of 
Natural and Synthetic Speech

Abstract:
This talk will describe speech in noise, a speaking style employed 
by people to improve their understandability when speaking in noisy 
conditions. I will discuss evidence of understandability improvements 
for natural speech, including recent experimental data.  Further, 
since even the highest quality speech synthesizers can be difficult 
to understand, I look at the viability of using this speaking style 
to improve understandability of synthetic speech. A technique for 
obtaining and using speech in noise for speech synthesis is described, 
in addition to data and results from understandability tests.