The Intelligibility of Interrupted Speech

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Abstract
The effects upon intelligibility of speech waves produced by turning them off and on intermittently or masking them with intermittent noises were studied with various rates and percentages of interruption. The speech was turned on and off in quiet, continuous speech was masked by interrupted white noise, and speech and noise were interrupted alternately. When the speech wave is turned on and off infrequently, the percentage of the message that is missed is approx. the same as the percentage of time the speech is off. When the interruptions are periodic and occur more than 10,000 times/sec. the interruptions do not interfere with reception. In the quiet it is easy to understand speech provided interruptions occur more than 10/sec. When continuous speech is masked by noise more than 200 times/sec, intelligibility is independent of the interruption frequency and of the percentage of time the noise is on. Interrupted masking noise impairs intelligibility least if the frequency of interruption is about 15/sec. When interrupted speech and interrupted noise alternate fewer than 10 alternations/ sec. the noise does not impair intelligibility. At higher frequencies of alternation masking becomes appreciable.

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