Date of Graduation
Spring 2011
Degree
Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders
Department
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Committee Chair
Klaas Bakker
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to examine how silent hesitations in speech affect listener perceptions of speech fluency. Previous studies have examined how the placement of hesitations and their durations in spontaneous speech alters comprehension of a message. However, the duration and placement of silent hesitations has not been studied with respect to perceptions of speech dysfluency. The present findings revealed that speech samples with hesitations within clauses were rated more dysfluent than those with hesitations between clauses. The findings also demonstrated that samples with hesitations of 250 ms and 450 ms were rated more dysfluent and significantly different from samples that contained hesitations of 350 ms. This finding possibly suggests a possible perceptual threshold effect related to linguistic processing.
Keywords
hesitation, duration, location, fluency disorder, cluttering
Subject Categories
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Copyright
© Alexa Rae Stevens
Recommended Citation
Stevens, Alexa Rae, "The Effect of Location and Duration of Silent Hesitations on Speech Fluency" (2011). MSU Graduate Theses/Dissertations. 2021.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/2021
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