Relationship between acoustic worship ambience and speech intelligibility in Goa's Bom Jesus Basilica

Abstract

The acoustic worship ambience in the church is defined through the derived Acoustic Worship Indices (AWI), namely Sacred Factor (SaF), Intelligibility Factor (InF) and Silence Factor (SiF). The Speech Intelligibility in the church was evaluated through RASTI tests for different sound source locations (altar [SA], pulpit [SB] and high altar [SC]) and for different postures (sitting [SIT] and standing [STAND]) and the Modified Rhyme Tests based Subjective Speech Intelligibility (SSI) scores for different source locations (SA, SB and SC) and for different languages (English [ENG] and Konkani [KONK]). SaF was found to regress significantly on SSI [SA] (R2 = 0.88) and RASTI[SIT] (R2 = 0.92); InF regressed the best on SSI[SC] (R2 = 0.84) and SSI[ENG] (R2 = 0.89) while SiF was best predicted through RASTI[STAND] (R2 = 0.93) and SSI[ENG] (R2 = 0.60). The possibility of a predictable connection between speech intelligibility and acoustic worship ambience can help enhance the liturgical functions in the church.