Dr. Jay Leventhal of the American Foundation For The Blind ust signalled
me the following article on application of TTS to Horticulture by the sage
of Appenzell. Please read on for details. And remember: all techniques
discussed should be applied externally only. Do not ingest and do not inject.
Regards,
G.
Guido Dante Corona
IBM Accessibility Center, Austin Tx.
Research Division,
Phone: 512. 838. 9735.
Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.ibm.com/able
----- Forwarded by Guido Corona/Austin/IBM on 04/01/2005 02:14 PM -----
"Jay Leventhal" <jaylev@xxxxxxx>
04/01/2005 01:56 PM
To
Guido Corona/Austin/IBM@IBMUS
cc
Subject
Plants Prefer Synthetic Speech
----------
From: Jay Leventhal
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 1:58 PM
To: techteam
Subject: Plants Prefer Synthetic Speech
A study conducted by professor Aloysius Q. Schmaltzenstein's research team
in Flumserberg, Switzerland, has shown that plants prefer synthetic speech
over human speech. A variety of plant species were tested. While some
plants were regularly read to by graduate students, others were placed
near computers which read to them using a variety of speech
synthesizers. The same texts were read in each case, from classic
literature to current magazines. Measurements were taken weekly. Changes
in the plants were noted throughout a six-month period.
The surprising results of the research showed that the plants exposed to
synthetic speech thrived--they grew faster and produced more flowers than
the plants exposed to human speech. Professor Schmaltzenstein believes
that synthetic speech provided consistent companionship for "our green
friends." He said that plants being read to by humans may have been
disturbed by a variety of factors, including long silences and bad breath.
