Prosodic cues for hesitation

Abstract

In our efforts to model spontaneous speech for use in, for example, spoken dialogue systems, a series of experiments have been conducted in order to investigate correlates to perceived hesitation. Previous work has shown that it is the total duration increase that is the valid cue rather than the contribution by either of the two factors pause duration and final lengthening. In the present experiment we explored the effects of FO slope variation and the preserve vs. absence of creaky voice in addition to durational cues, using synthetic stimuli. The results showed that variation of both FO slope and creaky voice did have perceptual effects, but to a much lesser degree than the durational increase.