Speakers’ comfort and voice level variation in classrooms: Laboratory research

David Pelegrin Garcia, Jonas Brunskog

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    Teachers adjust their voice levels under different classroom acoustics conditions, even in the absence of background noise. Laboratory experiments have been conducted in order to understand further this relationship and to determine optimum room acoustic conditions for speaking. Under simulated acoustic environments, talkers do modify their voice levels linearly with the measure voice support, and the slope of this relationship is referred to as room effect. The magnitude of the room effect depends highly on the instruction used and on the individuals. Group-wise, the average room effect ranges from 0.93 dB/dB, with free speech, to 0.1 dB/dB with other less demanding communication tasks as reading and talking at short distances. The room effect for some individuals
    can be as strong as 1.7 dB/dB. A questionnaire investigation showed that the acoustic comfort for talking in classrooms, in the absence of background noise, is correlated to the decay times derived from an impulse response measured from the mouth to the ears of a talker, and that there is a maximum of preference for decay times between 0.4 and 0.5 s. Teachers with self-reported voice problems prefer higher decay times to speak in than their healthy colleagues.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalAcoustical Society of America. Journal
    Volume132
    Issue number1
    Pages (from-to)249–260
    ISSN0001-4966
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • Acoustic noise
    • Architectural acoustics
    • Speech
    • Transient response

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