Effect of speech rate for sentences on speech intelligibility

This study investigates the effect of speech rate on speech intelligibility for sentences. The speech rate of sentences is converted by the software Adobe Audition with speech features unchanged. The subjective intelligibility test is applied to evaluate the speech intelligibility. Results show that the speech is absolutely intelligible when the speech rate is below 400 words per minute, but the speech intelligibility declines rapidly when the speech rate is from 400 to 1200 words per minute, and the speech is unintelligible when the speech rate is above 1200 words per minute. To communicate effectively, the speech rate of the utterance should be controlled at no more than 400 words per minute.