Effect of Level of Distracting Noise upon Speaking Rate, Duration and Intensity

Abstract

48 randomly-selected male undergraduates from an elementary public speaking course read five times, on signal, a 73 word passage into a microphone circuit as though they were communicating information to a listener. During the reading, subjects wore headphones into which was fed airplane type noise from a noise generator at predetermined levels. If subjects who have not been trained to communicate against a noise barrier are confronted with a communication problem in the presence of noise, they tend to react in what has been assumed to be a desirable manner, reducing the rate of speaking, prolonging syllables, and speaking with greater intensity as the noise increases.