Presented at the 16th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2010) on June 9-15, 2010 in Washington, DC.The ability to monitor multiple sources of concurrent auditory
information is an integral component of Navy watchstanding
operations. However, this leads to attentionally demanding
environments. The present study tested the utility of a potential
solution to listening to multiple speech communications in an
auditory display environment: presenting speech serially at
synthetically accelerated rates. Comprehension performance of
short auditory narratives was compared at seven accelerated
speech rates. Practice effects and training effects were
examined. An optimum acceleration rate for comprehension
performance was determined, and training was found to be an
effective method when synthetic speech was presented at slow
to moderately accelerated rates
