Abstract
The audiologic uses of Synte 2, a speech synthetizer converting text into speech, with unlimited word capacity, are described, One hundred persons with normal hearing, who were divided into four equal groups, listened to 150 to 400 words uttered at speeds equal to rates of 50, 60, 70 and 80 words per minute. Groups of words were uttered at 5-sec intervals at 50 dB SL. After 100 words the listeners' discrimination scores rose to over 80%. The highest mean score was 85%. The results were much the same for all the speeds tried. Synthesized speech affords the only means of producing identical, sensitized-speech tests over and over again. Although naturally the original tapes wear out, master tapes made on different occasions keep the test results constant. Synte 2 also provides an aid for the mute. It makes man-machine communication possible in business and industrial use. It serves a useful purpose also in speech pathology and phoniatric examinations. A discussion machine is under development.
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