Contrasts in Listeners' Perceptions of Fluency and Disfluency Continuums

Michael Susca and Alexandra Eng

This paper will contrast two studies of listeners’ perceptual ratings of eight speech and 14 speaker variables in fluent and disfluent videotaped presentations of a short passage. Fluent forms included normal, fast, single word productions, and continuous phonation. Disfluent forms included excessive pauses, stretched initial syllables, explosive tense starts, easy stuttering forms, and “um” interjections. Multivariate analysis revealed continuums of fluency and disfluency in each study, statistically significant differences within continuums across speech and speaker variables in each study, and a reversal of speech versus speaker rating patterns across the two studies.