Intelligibility of Words in Sentences

Acoustical and nonacoustical factors have been observed which suggest that words in one position in a sentence may be more intelligible than words in other positions. An experiment was undertaken to determine the effect of some of these factors upon word intelligibility in sentences heard in noise. One‐hundred six‐word sentences, drawn from magazines, were read to 10 listeners The intelligibility of words in the first, fourth, and sixth positions was determined and their acoustic characteristics were measured. Measurements of intensity, duration, and total energy were obtained for each word. The words in final position were lowest in intelligibility despite the fact that they were highest in average intensity, duration, and energy. This apparent contradiction was resolved by a grammatical analysis of the words. The words in the final position included a larger proportion of content words (Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) than words in the other positions. The content words are less predictable, less int...