Effect of Visual Factors on the Intelligibility of Speech

Research has indicated the important role that vision plays in face‐to‐face voice communication. This study was an attempt to quantify further the visual contribution to speech intelligibility in a high intensity noise environment in terms of the angle and distance from the listener to the speaker.Results indicated that (1) visual cues resulted in a significant increase in listener‐intelligibility scores, (2) the angle at which the listeners observed the speaker influenced their listener‐intelligibility scores, and (3) the distance of the listener from the speaker did not have a significant effect on listener‐intelligibility scores within three to nine‐foot limits.The importance of speech‐reading training and the use of visual cues is evident where face‐to‐face voice communication has to be conducted in high intensity noise environment.