The effect of source location, posture and language on speech intelligibility in Goan churches

The results presented here are based on field measurements carried out in six Catholic churches (Goa, India). Rapid Speech Transmission Index ( RASTI) and Subjective Speech Intelligibility ( SSI) measurements were made in four different seating zones of a church for three speech source locations (altar, pulpit, high altar), two languages (English, Konkani) and two postures (standing, sitting). The effects of language and postures were not significant. The altar location and the sanctuary of the church were preferable for speech intelligibility. Although the altar location showed better averages than the other speech source locations, the best predictive relationship between RASTI and SSI was the exponential growth of RASTI for the high altar source location with SSI for the English language.