“And miles to go before…” – Are speech intensity levels adjusted to VR communication distances?

The latter prosodic factor, voice power, is the subject of the present study. Following the conventions of current prosody research, we refer to it as ‘intensity’. Our investigation of intensity is motivated by two reasons: Firstly, the critical role of intensity for speakers to make a positive, persuasive impression on stage has for a long time stressed in rhetorical guidebooks but was only recently supported by empirical phonetic evidence. Second, the inherent immersion effect of VR (i.e. the users’ feeling of being “present”) almost seems tailor-made for training intensity, a vocal factor that is otherwise extremely difficult to train intuitively and effectively in the real world. It is known that speakers in everyday communication automatically adapt their intensity to the communication conditions and, in particular, to the speaker-listener distance. In public speaking, however, this adaptation often takes place insufficiently or not at all, with the result that speakers on stage speak much too quietly and, thus, inappropriately for the situation.