I’ve been trying to Google this answer but can’t find an answer.
If there’s only one speech banana, do male and female voices fit the speech banana, despite female voices being higher and males being lower?
I thought male voices were more low frequency and females were more high frequencies.
My lay interpretation would be that the fricatives in the upper right are what many of us might struggle to make out. They would be universal to all voices as they are a mechanical (for want of a better word) rather than a vocal chord made sound. Female and yet higher children voices would be harder to make out with vowel sounds from the vocal chords.
The next to the last paragraph of this is interesting: What Makes Men and Women Sound Different? Part Two | Beyond the Fourth Floor
The ‘speech banana’ is just the average of the likely energy for speech sounds.
If you look on a real ear measurement, speech usually contains multiple complex peaks and resonances for the main sounds. However some (especially vowel sounds) have a predominantly single peak output. So, the ‘banana’ is just the general area where speech hits.
Lower (Male) voices skew the average energy towards of the left, while higher voices move the whole average right. Those individual phonemes are a bit misleading as they can’t represent either the actual pitch or the complexity of given sound. This may also vary for different accents and languages too.
I never understood why I would hear pss pss when the TV sound was down before I got my aids.
Thanks to you guys and this site I understand.
I am so impressed with this article!
Thanks for posting the link.
You help me so much!
DaveL
Toronto
I’ve been trying to interpret my own hearing loss, and determine why I can’t hear better with my hearing aids.
My real motivation is that I want them to be set up much better. I want to understand speech better. I’m getting “helpful” hints at home that I’m not doing well. Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s. I’ve had them 1-1/2 years; I’ve used hearing aids since about 2002.
I found this thread searching for “speech banana” here on the site.
DaveL
Toronto
Still trying to get my 2-1/2 year old hearing aids setup so I can hear…
Came across this “Speech Banana” explanation and hope it helps someone …
