Commentary on "Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases" by Lauren Collister and David Huron

Abstract

We note that the intelligibility of vowels is reduced at high pitches, and propose that decreased decoding of vowels may partially account for the reported findings. Analysis of performance as a function of pitch is recommended. We surmise that reverberation associated with the large microphone distance might have generated reverberation that interfered disproportionately with identification of consonants in sung stimuli, which usually have greater sound intensity than spoken stimuli. Finally, we note the potential relevance of vibrato for speech intelligibility.