The evaluation structure model of the relationship between impression ratings and speech properties in public speaking

Abstract

  We analyzed the relationships between impression ratings and phonetic properties of monologues using the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ). The impression ratings were of subjective attributes such as speaking rate and speech style. Each attribute was rated on a seven-point scale. The phonetic properties were objective attributes such as speaking rate and pause ratio, as measured directly from the CSJ speech data. Using six phonetic properties and five impression ratings as variables, structural equation modeling was conducted to explain not only the relations between the impression and phonetic properties but also the relations among the impressions. The model showed that the impressions “Skillfulness” and “Liking” could be predicted from the impressions “Speech rate”, “Activity”, and “Formality”, which in turn could be related with the objective phonetic properties. Moreover, it was shown that the higher the “Skillfulness” evaluation, the higher the “Liking” evaluation.