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AbstractObjectiveDesignStudy SampleResultsConclusionsWell-balanced, semantically predictable sentence materials do not exist in the Slovak language. The primary goal of the current study was to develop and validate a set of sentences in stationary, speech-weighted noise that are equally difficult at the 50% point of a performance intensity curve.Listening tests were performed using a fixed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), encompassing five different SNR levels. The selected sentences were validated using an adaptive method.Reference data were obtained from native Slovakian adults with normal hearing (85 participants in the first phase and 37 participants in the second phase).The study yielded 18 sets of 10 sentences with an average fitted SRT (at 50% point) in noise of −4.5 dB SNR (SD = ±0.6 dB). The average slope of the performance intensity function was 14.4%/dB (SD = ±3.8%/dB).The Slovakian sentence test material can assess speech understanding in noise across various clinical and non-clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cemetery is usually an integral part of the urban environment, constituting a landmark, where a city buries its deceased, while providing places of remembrance and memory. Therefore, it establishes wide, usually car-free areas, where trees and small animals dominate the environmental space among the graves, within its urban plan. These seemingly empty areas, also host sparse human activity by mourners, visitors, death professionals or cleaners; it is their resonances, along with an ambient city soundscape from the background, that a listener experiences when visiting. Considering listening as multisensory experience, imaginary sounds often seem to integrate in this soundscape. What can sounds of the cemetery reveal? And which sound qualities define the relation between actual and imaginary sounds? By employing sound ethnography, including observation, recordings, listening tests and interviews, the article traces the qualities of Limassol's urban cemeteries through their everyday sound, from an experiential perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binaural decoding of an ambisonic sound is reproducing the information about a soundfield over headphones. It is done based on the spherical harmonics representation of the spatial sound and on the use of Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF). Inaccuracies in the decoding process, which can be caused for example by using non-personalized HRTF, may lead to difficulties in localizing the sound source by the listener. Especially in the elevation plane, localization errors can be significant. In this study, listening tests were conducted for naive listeners in order compare azimuth and elevation errors for first and third-order ambisonics recordings of pink noise bursts recorded in anechoic chamber. The tests involved 16 participants who used headphones to listen to ambisonic sound recordings, specifically bursts of pink noise, captured using Sennheiser Ambeo (1st order) and Zylia (3rd order) microphones. These recordings were then converted to B-format and decoded into binaural format for the listening tests. In the azimuth plane, the highest errors occurred at 0°, indicative of front-back confusions. In contrast, the elevation plane exhibited generally larger errors, with third-order ambisonics resulting in notably higher errors compared to first-order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is research based on the world of education which is related to the examination process which is usually related to level advancement carried out at the high school level. This research refers to research on listening tests compared to reading tests on English language arts works. Participants were given two types of input, where previously participants were divided into two groups. Listening test group and reading test group. The listening test group was given the task of listening to audio in the form of a song being played. The reading group was given treatment in the form of being asked to read a text containing the lyrics of the song played to the listening group. This research is quantitative research that uses numerical data in the form of student grades, the analysis uses regression analysis, namely analysis that correlates variables, the analysis tool uses the SPSS application and also ANOVA analysis. As a result, the difference in results from the type of test was not very significant, and it turned out that personality type had no effect on test results or final test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tonal powertrain noise can have a strong negative impact on vehicle sound quality. Therefore, an assessment of the perceptibility of tonal noise with respect to masking noise is essential for the vehicle development process. In electric vehicles, due to the missing masking by the combustion engine, new methods are required for this purpose. In this study, listening tests were conducted to determine the masking threshold in the electric vehicle interior for various driving speeds (30 km/h, 60 km/h, and 90 km/h) with an Adaptive-Forced-Choice method. The novelty of this study is that it used vehicle interior noise as a masker, compared to broadband or narrowband white and pink noises. It could be shown that the masking threshold in electric vehicles strongly depends on the driving speed, and the investigated interior noise mainly affects frequencies up to 6400 Hz in this speed range. For frequencies greater than 6400 Hz, the masking noise has no significant effect on perceptibility of tonal noise in the investigated vehicle, and only the subjects' individual absolute threshold of hearing is relevant. Additionally, a strong variation in the masking threshold between the subjects was found for high frequencies. With these results, methods that estimate masking thresholds in electric vehicles can be improved. Furthermore, threshold targets can be adjusted for different customer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sound insulation of the façade and its elements is a very important characteristic, as it largely determines the degree of sound protection of the building's interior from external noise sources. This feature, therefore, has a great influence on the acoustic comfort and health of the occupants. For this reason, it is very important that the way in which the sound insulation of the façade is quantified and represented corresponds to the way it is perceived. Although there have long been regulations describing how it should be measured and expressed through Single-Number Quantities (SNQs), there is much scientific debate about the appropriateness of current standardised methods for expressing sound insulation, in terms of whether they accurately represent human-perceived comfort. In this regard, much of the debate centres on the frequency range to be considered when expressing sound insulation, with no consensus as to whether the low-frequency bands (i.e., 50, 63, and 80 Hz) should be used for the calculation of façade sound insulation SNQs. In order to contribute to this knowledge, we conducted a listening test using a Two-Alternative Choice (2-AC) protocol on a sample of 100 participants to test whether participants' annoyance with urban noise changed significantly with variations in window sound insulation only in the low-frequency range. The results of the experiment, analysed using Thurstonian models, showed that the influence of low frequencies is limited for the sound insulation of the tested window façade elements and urban-type noise of aircraft and mixed urban traffic at low speeds and only becomes relevant when the sound insulation of the elements is exceptionally low in the low-frequency range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) is one of the most popular compression formats used for sound and especially for music. However, during the coding process, the MP3 algorithm negatively affects the spectral and dynamic characteristics of the audio file being compressed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect the MP3 coding format for different music genres and different bitrates via listening tests in which the original uncompressed files and the compressed files are compared. For this purpose, five different music genres were selected (rock, jazz, electronic, classical and solo instrument), and the files were compressed in three different bitrates (96 kbps, 160 kbps and 320 kbps). The semantic differential method was used, and ten bipolar scales were selected for the listening tests (e.g., better–worse, more distortion–less distortion, etc.). The following are the most important findings of this study: classical music was negatively affected the most among the genres due to the MP3 compression (lowest ratings in 8 out of 10 bipolar scales), the solo instrument was least affected among the genres (highest rating in 7 out of 10 bipolar scales), and for higher bit rates, the differences in ratings were small for all music genres. The findings of this study could be used to optimize and adapt the standard, depending on the music genre and the musical piece that needs to be encoded.

The Blizzard Challenge has benchmarked progress in Text-to-Speech (TTS) since 2005. The Challenge has seen important milestones passed, with results suggesting that synthetic speech was indistinguishable from natural speech in terms of intelligibility in 2021 and that by that same year it was perhaps even indistinguishable in naturalness. The high quality of synthetic speech generated by the latest TTS systems has thus revealed limitations with ITU-T P.800.1 Mean Opinion Score (MOS) in detecting the remaining differences between synthetic and natural speech. Yet, it was the only method used in previous Challenges and is still the most popular method in the field for speech synthesis evaluation. In the 2023 Challenge, we addressed observed limitations of past Challenges by incorporating state-of-the-art speech synthesis evaluation techniques to refine the evaluation of speech quality, speaker similarity and intelligibility. For speech quality, a relative comparison of the systems receiving the best MOS was able to discover a greater number of significant differences between systems. Regarding speaker similarity, we demonstrated that there is a strong bias depending on whether the listeners are familiar with the target voice or not. As for intelligibility, the evaluation of language-specific phenomena, such as the pronunciation of homographs, better highlighted system limits compared to global transcription tasks of synthesised utterances. In addition to reporting results for the 18 entries to the 2023 Challenge, we extend the results analysis to type of TTS module to provide some insights on the most recent advances in model design. Overall, this year's results demonstrate the need for a shift towards new methods for refining TTS evaluation to shed light on increasingly smaller and localised differences between synthesised and natural speech. • Large-scale benchmark of 18 text-to-speech systems (Blizzard Challenge 2023). • Speech quality: synthetic and natural speech can be given similar Mean Opinion Score • Speech quality: fine-grained relative comparison reveals the remaining differences • Speaker similarity: listeners cannot perfectly recognise the reference natural voice • This questions speaker similarity evaluation paradigms for synthetic speech. • Intelligibility: generic transcription task failed to distinguish between systems • Intelligibility: assessing homograph pronunciation shows differences between systems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes a headphone Active Noise Control (ANC) scheme based on the targeted attenuation of sources that are deemed disturbing for listeners. Initially, a listening test determines the disturbance of distinct noises that coexist within background noise based on their class and their direction of arrival. The listening test is based on such predetermined spatial scenes, binaurally auralized and presented via headphones. The derived disturbance metric, guides the operation of the proposed headphone ANC: any complex auditory scene is subsequently analyzed and via a Sound Event Localization and Detection Neural Network, a beamformer is steered to the source deemed to be the most disturbing. A Time-Domain Beamformer, driven by a phased array formed by the two already existing reference microphones commonly found in the outer shell of ANC-enabled headphones and guides the multi-reference ANC controller in order to provide an improved attenuation of the primary disturbing source, while also significantly attenuating the background noise field to acceptable levels.

Through the use of eye-tracking technology and a while-listening performance (WLP) test, this study examined the differences in gaze behaviors and measured listening performances on test items (across various stages of the test) and compared them between native English-speaking (E-L1) and non-native English-speaking (E-L2) candidates. One hundred students from a public university in Singapore participated in the study. A series of Mann-Whitney U tests indicated that E-L1 candidates outperformed E-L2 candidates in the test with higher test scores. Using stringent data processing cutoffs (presence≥80% gaze data) and a series of non-parametric multivariate analyses, the study further found that the dynamicity of gaze behaviors on the test items across various stages of the test was similar between E-L1 and E-L2 candidates. However, there were distinctive differences in gaze behaviors between the two groups. For E-L1 candidates, none of the gaze behaviors on the test items across the different stages of the test predicted their overall listening test scores. In contrast, the overall listening test scores for E-L2 candidates was predicted by the average proportion of time that they had dwelled on the test items while simultaneously answering them and listening to the auditory text. The study is the first to show that keyword matching on the test items during the while-listening stage significantly contributes to WLP test performance for E-L2 candidates. These results suggest that the focal construct of the listening test is confounded by group-specific reading behaviors on the test items. In line with previous research, the use of the WLP test format for assessing second language listening comprehension is not recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sound insulation of the façade and its elements is a very important characteristic, as it largely determines the degree of sound protection of the building’s interior from external noise sources. This feature, therefore, has a great influence on the acoustic comfort and health of the occupants. For this reason, it is very important that the way in which the sound insulation of the façade is quantified and represented corresponds to the way it is perceived. Although there have long been regulations describing how it should be measured and expressed through Single-Number Quantities (SNQs), there is much scientific debate about the appropriateness of current standardised methods for expressing sound insulation, in terms of whether they accurately represent human-perceived comfort. In this regard, much of the debate centres on the frequency range to be considered when expressing sound insulation, with no consensus as to whether the low-frequency bands (i.e., 50, 63, and 80 Hz) should be used for the calculation of façade sound insulation SNQs. In order to contribute to this knowledge, we conducted a listening test using a Two-Alternative Choice (2-AC) protocol on a sample of 100 participants to test whether participants’ annoyance with urban noise changed significantly with variations in window sound insulation only in the low-frequency range. The results of the experiment, analysed using Thurstonian models, showed that the influence of low frequencies is limited for the sound insulation of the tested window façade elements and urban-type noise of aircraft and mixed urban traffic at low speeds and only becomes relevant when the sound insulation of the elements is exceptionally low in the low-frequency range.

MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) is one of the most popular compression formats used for sound and especially for music. However, during the coding process, the MP3 algorithm negatively affects the spectral and dynamic characteristics of the audio file being compressed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect the MP3 coding format for different music genres and different bitrates via listening tests in which the original uncompressed files and the compressed files are compared. For this purpose, five different music genres were selected (rock, jazz, electronic, classical and solo instrument), and the files were compressed in three different bitrates (96 kbps, 160 kbps and 320 kbps). The semantic differential method was used, and ten bipolar scales were selected for the listening tests (e.g., better–worse, more distortion–less distortion, etc.). The following are the most important findings of this study: classical music was negatively affected the most among the genres due to the MP3 compression (lowest ratings in 8 out of 10 bipolar scales), the solo instrument was least affected among the genres (highest rating in 7 out of 10 bipolar scales), and for higher bit rates, the differences in ratings were small for all music genres. The findings of this study could be used to optimize and adapt the standard, depending on the music genre and the musical piece that needs to be encoded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first study to investigate the effects of test methods (while-listening performance and post-listening performance) and gender on measured listening ability and brain activation under test conditions. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to examine three brain regions associated with listening comprehension: the inferior frontal gyrus and posterior middle temporal gyrus, which subserve bottom-up processing in comprehension, and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which mediates top-down processing. A Rasch model reliability analysis showed that listeners were homogeneous in their listening ability. Additionally, there were no significant differences in test scores across test methods and genders. The fNIRS data, however, revealed significantly different activation of the investigated brain regions across test methods, genders, and listening abilities. Together, these findings indicated that the listening test was not sensitive to differences in the neurocognitive processes underlying listening comprehension under test conditions. The implications of these findings for assessing listening and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality (VR) technology has gradually become recognized as an emerging sector showing great potential to be utilized across various fields. Its practicality has been discussed in several studies, but few studies have been conducted on the use of VR to test English listening ability. Thus, in the present study, an immersive VR listening test was developed to measure English listening proficiency, and the correlation of scores from the newly developed VR test with another validated listening test (TOEIC) was investigated by conducting a non-parametric Spearman's rank test. The study further explored test-takers' perceived levels of presence on an immersive VR listening test, given that presence levels are considered one of the most critical factors for the VR experience. Data were collected from 17 tertiary-level test-takers. Each test-taker underwent two different types of VR tests while wearing HMDs (Head-mounted displays): 360-degree immersive videos and a total-immersive listening task. Through test score comparisons and the analysis of responses from presence questionnaires, the VR listening test and TOEIC listening test scores showed a positive, moderate correlation. In addition, the study found that the test-takers experienced similar levels of presence regardless of test type. The study also discusses implications for language assessment and pedagogy, as well as study limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate how test methods affect listening test takers' performance and cognitive load. Test methods were defined and operationalized as while-listening performance (WLP) and post-listening performance (PLP) formats. To achieve the goal of the study, we examined test takers' (N = 80) brain activity patterns (measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)), gaze behaviors (measured by eye-tracking), and listening performance (measured by test scores) across the two test methods. We found that the test takers displayed lower activity levels across brain regions supporting comprehension during the WLP tests relative to the PLP tests. Additionally, the gaze behavioral patterns exhibited during the WLP tests suggested that the test takers adopted keyword matching and "shallow listening." Together, the neuroimaging and gaze behavioral data indicated that the WLP tests imposed a lower cognitive load on the test takers than the PLP tests. However, the test takers performed better with higher test scores for one of two WLP tests compared with the PLP tests. By incorporating eye-tracking and neuroimaging in this exploration, this study has advanced the current knowledge on cognitive load and the impact imposed by different listening test methods. To advance our knowledge of test validity, other researchers could adopt our research protocol and focus on extending the test method framework used in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to explore the washback of incorporating English listening test in the senior high entrance exam (Comprehensive Assessment Program: CAP) on EFL instruction in junior high schools in Taiwan. The participants were thirty English teachers and 298 students from three junior high schools in Taiwan. The instruments consisted of questionnaires and interview guide. The questionnaires were conducted to investigate the participants' perceptions of the influence of CAP English listening test on EFL teachers' instructions, students' learning activities and test preparation. A semi-structured interview was also adopted to probe specific information of participants' perceptions of the CAP listening test, their needs and suggestions. Results showed that teachers and students had positive perceptions of the incorporation of CAP listening assessment. Moreover, the CAP reform generated positive washback effects to the instructors. Most of them were willing to change their teaching approaches, arrange some teaching activities, and provide diverse learning materials as long as class time allows. In addition, the results showed that students' English learning motivation increased due to the CAP listening test. It is also indicated that students' stress and test anxiety for senior high entrance exam may increase. As for the suggestions, both teachers and students indicated that they cared about the time for practicing listening and speaking, listening assessment of different English accents, and better audio equipment. Moreover, because the inequality of educational resources and bimodal distribution of students' EFL proficiency still exist in Taiwan, most of the participants considered that the difficulty level and score weighting of the CAP listening test should not be increased. Implications for enhancing EFL listening instruction in junior high schools were further proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our work is concerned with the subjective perception of music similarity in the context of music recommendation. We present two user studies to explore inter- and intra-rater agreement in quantification of general similarity between pieces of recommended music. Contrary to previous efforts, our test participants are of more uniform age and share a comparable musical background to lower variation within the participant group. The first study uses carefully curated song material from five distinct genres while the second uses songs from a single genre only, with almost all songs in both studies previously unknown to test participants. Repeating the listening tests with a two week lag shows that intra-rater agreement is higher than inter-rater agreement for both studies. Agreement for the single genre study is lower since genre of songs seems a major factor in judging similarity between songs. Mood of raters at test-time is found to have an influence on intra-rater agreement. We discuss the impacts of our results on evaluation of music recommenders and question the validity of experiments on general music similarity.

• White noise is more suitable as an anchor than pink noise in standard sample method. • Construct a decision function to automatically match the optimum standard sample. • Propose a matched standard sample method to conduct accurate subjective assessment. • Provide a reliable assessment scale for quantitative analysis of noise annoyance. Subjective noise assessment, expressing people's feelings about noise qualitatively or quantitatively, plays a crucial role in noise control and management. Among established methods for assessing sound perception characteristics, the anchor rating scale stands out for its low requirements for participants, moderate workload, and high accuracy. However, inconsistencies in anchor selection can lead to incommensurability between subjective assessment results obtained from various sample sets. While the standard sample method (SSM) addresses this issue, its assessment accuracy relies on the noise characteristics being assessed. This paper seeks to remedy this limitation by conducting comparative listening tests for three versions of SSM that compare their performance to the anchor rating scale and proposing a reliable engineering application guideline. The comparative study demonstrated that white noise outperformed pink noise in assessing noise annoyance. Furthermore, both pure tone and white noise presented different advantages in assessing the noises with prominent perceptual difference, which is related to the inherent characteristics of the noise samples themselves. To ensure the selection of the appropriate standard sample type for obtaining accurate subjective results when employing the standard sample as the anchor to assess annoyance caused by a group of noise, the matched standard samples method (MSSM) was proposed. A decision function was developed based on psychoacoustic parameters like sharpness, roughness, tonality, etc. The MSSM automated the selection of the most appropriate standard sample type for a tested noise set, utilizing a decision function as the judgment basis. Within the chosen standard sample type, the one with a sound level closest to the median of the tested noises was the optimum standard sample for annoyance assessment of the noise set. This "matched" identified an optimum standard sample for a specific noise set, ensuring close alignment with the tested noise's annoyance-generating mechanism and median sound level. The listening test confirmed that the MSSM exhibited a superior correlation with the anchor rating scale method and higher accuracy compared to the SSM. The MSSM solidifies the scientific basis of standard sample selection and offers a reliable guideline with as few uniform scales as possible for assessing noise auditory perception in engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to explore the washback of incorporating English listening test in the senior high entrance exam (Comprehensive Assessment Program: CAP) on EFL instruction in junior high schools in Taiwan. The participants were thirty English teachers and 298 students from three junior high schools in Taiwan. The instruments consisted of questionnaires and interview guide. The questionnaires were conducted to investigate the participants' perceptions of the influence of CAP English listening test on EFL teachers' instructions, students' learning activities and test preparation. A semi-structured interview was also adopted to probe specific information of participants' perceptions of the CAP listening test, their needs and suggestions. Results showed that teachers and students had positive perceptions of the incorporation of CAP listening assessment. Moreover, the CAP reform generated positive washback effects to the instructors. Most of them were willing to change their teaching approaches, arrange some teaching activities, and provide diverse learning materials as long as class time allows. In addition, the results showed that students' English learning motivation increased due to the CAP listening test. It is also indicated that students' stress and test anxiety for senior high entrance exam may increase. As for the suggestions, both teachers and students indicated that they cared about the time for practicing listening and speaking, listening assessment of different English accents, and better audio equipment. Moreover, because the inequality of educational resources and bimodal distribution of students' EFL proficiency still exist in Taiwan, most of the participants considered that the difficulty level and score weighting of the CAP listening test should not be increased. Implications for enhancing EFL listening instruction in junior high schools were further proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Megaron is the property of KARE Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This work focuses on subjective perception of disruptive sounds with different harmonic frequencies and parts. It verifies the core of subjective disturbance on basis of a listening test. The effort is to clarify if there is more problematic the issue of clearly audible beats – which is more informative contents issue – or predominantly low frequencies of sound. Clearly audible impulses in sound records are meant by the definition beats in this article – for example drums in the recording. The point of interest is mainly low efficiency of sound insulation against low frequency sound as music with significant beats. The research is restricted only on respondents without hearing difficulties. Based on answers from more than 20 respondents there is conclusion from this paper that the research focus is far from clearance and simplicity. Answers are often very inconsistent and complaints about impossible task were noticed multiple times. In general, however, there is very clear that the problem in disturbance is hidden in low frequencies and with audible beats. The low frequencies are the key disturbance agent in this particular matter.

The program material is of great importance for the results of the listening tests on loudspeakers, while the process of how to select the program material remains ambiguous. This paper investigates the criterion for selecting programs suitable for low-frequency perceptual evaluation based on the audio features of the program. A listening test was conducted to identify the more discriminating and revealing programs in the low-frequency range. Based on the listening test results, various characteristics of the programs, including dynamic, timbral, rhythmic, and spectral features, were extracted. Their relationships with the program's discrimination ability are discussed. The results suggest that programs with a slow and clear rhythm and a smooth and even spectrum in the whole band are more discriminating in detecting the spectral differences in the low frequencies. By using these significant features, a discriminant analysis was performed to predict the ability of the program to reveal the spectral irregularities. The predictive accuracy of the derived discriminant function was 95% in separating the discriminating and undiscriminating programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of English as a Lingua Franca is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mobile phones and other handheld electronic devices are now ubiquitous and play an important role in our everyday lives. Over the last decade, we have seen a sharp rise in the sophistication of both hardware and software for these devices, thus significantly increasing their utility and use. Electronic devices are now commonly used for the streaming of audio and video and for the regular playback of music. Multichannel audio has now become a popular format and with recent updates in software, the latest audio codecs that support this format can effectively be played back on most electronic devices. As a result, more audio content that is now compatible with these devices is being produced. It is important to perform subjective quality tests for multichannel audio verses traditional stereo and mono on devices like mobile phones while using headphones. This paper presents the results and analysis of such listening tests that evaluate basic audio quality and quality of experience. The results show that while multichannel audio scores higher than stereo and mono for both of these attributes, the difference in score was less for the ratings of quality of experience. The results were processed using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to show the statistical significance. Calculation of the effect size showed that the audio content had little bearing on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the optimization of the acoustic properties of selected noise sources of household appliances, specifically washing machines. The introductory parts are focused on the analysis of parameters affecting the quality of the product, the so-called "general features of product quality" and a proposal of a new methodology for their evaluation. Attention is paid mainly to a new type of properties, the so-called customer-oriented acoustic properties of the product. Methodologies have been developed for laboratory measurements of psychoacoustic properties and noise visualization, which are then tested in an anechoic chamber by measurement with an acoustic camera and a psychoacoustic head. Methodologies after their evaluation are used in measurements in real conditions. A listening test is created, the results of which can be used to evaluate practical measurements and determine customer-required acoustic, customer-oriented properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presented paper focuses on the possibilities of evaluating the acoustic properties of partial noise sources of household washing machines. The introductory parts are focused on the analysis of the use of a new type of properties, so-called customer-oriented acoustic properties of the product. The next part focuses on the design of an evaluation methodology, which is used for laboratory measurements of psychoacoustic properties. This methodology, after laboratory testing, is used for measurements in real conditions of selling, directly in sales premises. A listening test is proposed, the results of which are used to determine the acoustic properties required by customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language testing plays a vital role in English teaching. It can accurately reflect the teaching effect in a short period of time, and it is also an indispensable teaching method to assess the knowledge of students. The current study takes the final test of adult English listening class in School of Continual Education as an example, under the theoretical language assessment framework of Bachman and Palmer, uses the data collected by the statistical analysis software SPSS to test the reliability and validity of the listening final exam from a statistical perspective. The study found that the reliability and validity of the selected listening test were generally acceptable, the differentiation among students was obvious but it has high item difficulty. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the authenticity of the listening test and the communicative skill of the listening material. This study is conducted to find out the problems of the current listening test in the School of Continual Education, and propose specific solutions based on the basic elements of the language test. It is hoped that the research in this article will play a positive role in designing adult English listening tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of speech synthesis is a crucial issue in comparison of various text-to-speech (TTS) systems. We proposed a system for automatic evaluation of speech quality by statistical analysis of temporal features (time duration, phrasing, and time structuring of an analysed sentence) together with standard spectral and prosodic features. This system was successfully tested on sentences produced by a unit selection speech synthesizer with a male as well as a female voice using two different approaches to prosody manipulation. Experiments have shown that for correct, sharp, and stable results all three types of speech features (spectral, prosodic, and temporal) are necessary. Furthermore, the number of used statistical parameters has a significant impact on the correctness and precision of the evaluated results. It was also demonstrated that the stability of the whole evaluation process is improved by enlarging the used speech material. Finally, the functionality of the proposed system was verified by comparison of the results with those of the standard listening test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at describing the test item making process in developing OLIVE, Online Listening for Individual Practice. OLIVE is a combination of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and ICT (Information Communication Technology), which is an e-learning format. It is a web application prepared by Sekolah Vokasi Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta to enhance listening skill for non-English major students. OLIVE provides supplementary listening materials in the form of test which can be self-accessed online outside the classroom. There are four parts of the listening practice served in OLIVE; Short Conversation, Question-Response, Longer Conversation, and Talks. Meanwhile, the process of the test making includes design, operationalization, and administration.