SOUTHERN TWANG STANDS OUT IN A NOISY ENVIRONMENT

According to new research, twangy voices like Dolly Parton’s are easier to understand than neutral ones in traffic noise, especially for female speakers. Researchers from Indiana University designed an experiment using artificial intelligence to create synthetic speech into ‘no’ accent and ‘twangy’ accent while keeping everything else identical. Twangy speech outperformed neutral speech consistently. Listeners correctly identified more words when speakers used the twangy style, and they reported feeling less mentally fatigued by the listening task — especially for female voices. The reason why: twangy voices boost sound in the 500 Hz–6 kHz range, a “sweet spot” for speech clarity whereas traffic noise tends to be weaker in that particular range. The findings could improve communication for train conductors, pilots, and emergency broadcasters — without requiring anyone to shout.
* All aboard, y’all.
* How will train conductors, pilots, and emergency broadcasters boost those upper ranges? Breathe helium?
* All I know is, if Dolly Parton is speaking to me in any situation, I’m paying attention to her.
* If this is true, I need a Twang Button on my TV, to hear the dialogue better.