Speech intelligibility in restaurants

Speech intelligibility is at the heart of the dining experience. Being able to understand what is being said at the table is critical, whether it is a romantic dinner between two lovers, an important business deal closing, or sharing laughter with family and friends. This paper will explore the intersection of the soundscape method that was used to analyze over 40 restaurants and incorporate data from the selected restaurants to understand the trends in speech perception metrics such as STI, background sound level and Reverberation Time and how they relate to different dining spaces. The idea of analyzing the Near and Far STI is explored in several restaurants. A surprising case study is examined that includes dining rooms at a retirement home, their measured acoustic metrics, hypotheses for the difficulty in speech intelligibility for these rooms, and examines potential strategies to improve.