The relative contribution of high and low speech frequencies to intelligibility was examined for excerpts from conversation and for words spoken in isolation. Unrehearsed conversation and word lists were recorded from each of four female talkers and then played back through filters for intelligibility tests. The relative contribution was specified by estimating the crossover frequency, above which, and below which, equal contributions to speech intelligibility were made. The crossover frequency varied from 1410 to 1570 cps., respectively, for conversation samples of 1 to 5 words. The crossover frequency for monosyllabic words spoken in isolation was 1920 cps.
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