Automatic recognition of second language speech-in-noise

Abstract

Measuring how well human listeners recognize speech under varying environmental conditions (speech intelligibility) is a challenge for theoretical, technological, and clinical approaches to speech communication. The current gold standard—human transcription—is time- and resource-intensive. Recent advances in automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems raise the possibility of automating intelligibility measurement. This study tested 4 state-of-the-art ASR systems with second language speech-in-noise and found that one, whisper, performed at or above human listener accuracy. However, the content of whisper's responses diverged substantially from human responses, especially at lower signal-to-noise ratios, suggesting both opportunities and limitations for ASR--based speech intelligibility modeling.