Speed Hearing & Speed Talking
For the specific case of speech, time stretching can be performed using PSOLA.
Time stretching can be used with audio books and recorded lectures. Slowing down may improve comprehension of foreign languages .
While one might expect speeding up to reduce comprehension, Herb Friedman says that "Experiments have shown that the brain works most efficiently if the information rate through the ears--via speech--is the "average" reading rate, which is about 200-300 wpm (words per minute), yet the average rate of speech is in the neighborhood of 100-150 wpm."
Speeding up audio is seen as the equivalent of "speed reading" .
Time stretching is often used to adjust Radio commercials and the audio of Television advertisements to fit exactly into the 30 or 60 seconds available.
Read more about this topic: Audio Timescale-pitch Modification
Famous quotes containing the words speed, hearing and/or talking:
“There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.”
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)