Temporal characteristics of speech in simultaneous communication.

The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (a) to determine if there are changes in specific temporal characteristics of speech that occur during simultaneous communication, and (b) to determine if known temporal rules of spoken English are disrupted during simultaneous communication. Ten speakers uttered sentences consisting of a carrier phrase and experimental CVC words under conditions of: (a) speech, (b) speech combined with signed English, and (c) speech combined with signed English for every word except the CVC word that was fingerspelled. The temporal features investigated included: (a) sentence duration, (b) experimental CVC word duration, (c) vowel duration in experimental CVC words, (d) pause duration before and after experimental CVC words, and (e) consonantal effects on vowel duration. Results indicated that for all durational measures, the speech/sign/fingerspelling condition was longest, followed by the speech/sign condition, with the speech condition being shortest: It was also found that for all three speaking conditions, vowels were longer in duration when preceding voiced consonants than vowels preceding their voiceless cognates, and that a low vowel was longer in duration than a high vowel. These findings indicate that speakers consistently reduced their rate of speech when using simultaneous communication, but did not violate these specific temporal rules of English important for consonant and vowel perception.