Many investigators ( e.g. Allen 1976 ; Elowitz et al. 1976 ; Luce et al. 1983 ; Cahn 1988 ) have suggested that the poor prosody of synthetic speech , in comparison with natural speech , is the primary factor leading to difficulties in the comprehension of fluent synthetic speech .
capacity demands in shortterm memory for synthetic and natural speech
P A Luce T C Feustel D B Pisoni
Existing text-to-speech systems perform well on word pronunciation and short sentences ,12 but when it comes to long sentences and paragraphs , synthetic speech tends to be difficult to listen to and understand . Many investigators ( e.g. Allen 1976 ; Elowitz et al. 1976 ; Luce et al. 1983 ; Cahn 1988 ) have suggested that the poor prosody of synthetic speech , in comparison with natural speech , is the primary factor leading to difficulties in the comprehension of fluent synthetic speech . And while researchers in text-tospeech synthesis have adopted a variety of approaches to prosodic phrase generation -- from the simple punctuationbased rules and function word listings of existing commercial systems to the sophisticated prosodic heuristics described in Emorine and Martin ( 1988 ) and O'Shaughnessy ( 1989 ) -- the generation of appropriate prosodic phrasing in unrestricted text has remained a problem .
Many investigators ( e.g. Allen 1976 ; Elowitz et al. 1976 ; @@CITATION ; Cahn 1988 ) have suggested that the poor prosody of synthetic speech , in comparison with natural speech , is the primary factor leading to difficulties in the comprehension of fluent synthetic speech .