8 Fast Talkers

Fast Talkers

By: Monica Orlandini

Problem:

People are always saying, “Speak slowly,” or “Slow down”. Some people are naturally fast speakers, and people can often find themselves trying to listen and understand, but unfortunately responding with, “What?” or “Can you say that again?”. Since this is such a common occurrence, my science fair project addresses this issue. I decided to test what the fastest pace someone can speak at, while still speaking with accuracy and clarity of the words they’re trying to project.

Hypothesis:

I predicted that the test subjects would be less accurate as their speed increased.

Procedure:

• 1. Print out your chosen passage for your test subject to read. Do an accurate word count and determine the number of words in the passage. (This can usually be done efficiently in a word processor, but you can count it yourself as well) Write down and remember this number.

  2. Hand the passage to your test subject and instruct them to raise their hand when they are done reading the passage. This is so you will know when to press stop on the stopwatch.

  3. Give your test subject 3 counts (ready..set...go or 1,2,3) and instruct them to start reading the passage as fast and as accurate as they can. Stop the watch when your test subject raises his/her hand. Record this time.

  4. Using an audio software (such as Audacity), press the option to slow down or play back speech so you can hear word-for-word what the test subject has said....just in slow-mo.

  5. Count out any words that still sound inaudible, slurred, skipped, or incorrect. Take this number and divide by the number of total words in the passage and multiply by 100. This number will determine the percent accuracy. Record this.

  6. Repeat steps 2-5 for all of your test subjects.

  7. After you have tested all your subjects you should record your results in a reasonable manner and come up with a conclusion.

Data:

Abstract:

How Fast Can You Talk With Accuracy?

By: Monica Orlandini

Before a speech or presentation, a concern of most people is the fear that they will speak too quickly, making it hard for the audience to understand them. People are always saying, “Speak slowly,” or “Slow down”. Some people are naturally fast speakers, and people can often find themselves trying to listen and understand, but unfortunately responding with, “What?” or “Can you say that again?”. Since this is such a common occurrence, my science fair project addresses this issue. I decided to test what the fastest pace someone can speak at, while still speaking with accuracy and clarity of the words they’re trying to project. My hypothesis is I predicted that the test subjects would be less accurate as their speed increased.

To begin with this test, I first gathered a group of test subjects, both boys and girls. I then chose a passage for my test subjects to recite. I had each test subject recite the passage, trying to read it the fastest that they could while remaining accuracy. I also recorded them reading. I used a stopwatch to keep track of the time they spent reading. Once they were finished, I played their recording in slow motion in order to detect words that were incorrect or slurred. I divided the number or incorrect and slurred words by the total word count, multiplied that number by one hundred, to then find the accuracy percentage or the passage. I did this for each test subject.

The average number of skipped words per subject was three, while the average number of slurred words was approximately 3, and the average number of incorrect words was about 1.5. Obviously, increasing the speed that the passage was read definitely altered the way the passage was recited, the average number of incorrect words was the lowest compared to the average number of slurred and skipped words. Out of the 103 words, most of the words that were recited were accounted for in the correct way.

During my research, I found that the faster the test subjects tried to recite the passage that I gave them, the more slurred and incorrect words there were. The test subjects would read it 3 times, the first time with Initial Speed, second time with speed increase, third time was with their final speed. This was similar to my hypothesis, as I predicted that speaking faster would most likely result in more mistakes and errors. Playing back the recordings in slow motion definitely made for a more accurate test because I was able to really identify how each word of the passage was spoken. In addition, I tested each subject under the same conditions, which also made for an accurate test. To improve this experiment I could get a more diverse group of test subjects ( different ages and I could get more people. )

Conclusion:

As I predict, the more the test subjects increased his or her speed. The more the mistakes, slurs, and incorrect words were spoken. The relationship between accuracy and the speed depends on each other.