Neutral voices and tonal modification
Abstract
Current recommendations say that the voicing of audio description should be neutral (for example, AENOR, 2005). However, little research has been carried out into what a neutral voice is from a prosodic point of view. This paper presents the results of a perception test in Spanish in which the pitch of a speaker’s –voice that was considered in previous studies as neutral– is manipulated to determine if the voice continues to be perceived as neutral. The experiment involved 26 people with audio description skills and 29 without, and participants were asked how they would define a "neutral voice." None of the participants had sight loss. The results show that the definitions of a neutral voice can be classified into 10 categories. In addition, the low-pitched voices were considered more neutral than the high-pitched ones, although the participants continued to identify the original voice with no pitch modifications as the most neutral.
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