• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.171-178
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• 2010

This study examined the relationship between speech intelligibility and comprehensibility for hearing impaired children with cochlear implants. Speech intelligibility was measured by orthographic transcription method for acoustic signal at the level of words and sentences. Comprehensibility was evaluated by examining listener's ability to answer questions about the contents of a narrative. Speech samples were collected from 12 speakers(age of 6~15 years) with cochlear implants. For each speaker, 4 different listeners(total of 48 listeners) completed 2 tasks: One task involved making orthographic transcriptions and the other task involved answering comprehension questions. The results of the study were as follows: (1) Speech intelligibility and comprehensibility scores tended to be increased by decreasing of severity. (2) Across all speakers, the relationship was significant between speech intelligibility and comprehensibility scores without considering severity. However, within severity groups, there was the significant relationship between comprehensibility and speech intelligibility only for moderate-severe group. These results suggest that speech intelligibility scores measured by orthographic transcription may not accurately reflect how well listener comprehend speech of children with cochlear implants and therefore, measures of both speech intelligibility and listener comprehension should be considered in evaluating speech ability and information-bearing capability in speakers with cochlear implants.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2015

Objective: The goal of this study is to evaluate the comprehensibility of the newly introduced water-sport prohibitive signs by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE, later merged into the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy) among Koreans and westerners, and to check whether the comprehensibility is affected by cultural differences. Background: The Ministry of Knowledge Economy had newly introduced fourteen water-sport prohibitive signs at the end of 2011 to alert people to potentially dangerous situations. However, no studies had been found so far to review or assess their comprehensibility. Method: Comprehensibility tests of fourteen water-sport prohibitive signs were conducted with forty Koreans and forty Westerners in two sequential sessions. In session I, participants were asked to guess the meaning of each sign verbally in an open-ended test. In session II, participants were encouraged to provide feedback for each sign after its intended meaning was given. Results: Only two out of fourteen signs satisfied the comprehension rate (67%) recommended by ISO standard for both groups (Koreans and Westerners). Cultural difference between Koreans and westerners significantly affect the comprehension rates of the investigated signs, and Westerners exhibit better overall comprehension than Koreans. Five poorly comprehended signs for both Korean and Western groups were identified. Conclusion: The recently introduced water-sport prohibitive warning signs by MKE still need a lot of improvements in order to be implemented nationally or internationally. There were significant differences in the signs' comprehensibility between Koreans and westerners. Application: The findings may serve as a useful input for researchers and watersport sign designers in creating easy-to-comprehend safety signs.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.61-72
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to propose the clue of planning guideline for the elderly welfare center supporting the healthy life of the elderly through deriving the planning element of the elderly welfare center based on the Salutogenic Model(SM). The research method was proceeded with literature review. The meaning of Sense of Coherence(SOC) and Generalised Resistance Resources(GRR) which constitute Salutogenic Model is established. The correlation between SOC and GRR is analyzed. The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, EBD, BD, HD, UD, and BFD were studied as planning theories that could enhance the SOC of space. Second, based on the five planning theories, 43 planning elements needed for the elderly welfare center plan were derived. Third, as a result of classifying the plan elements based on the SOC, 'Manageability' is divided into 22 elements, 'Meaningfulness' is 11 and 'Comprehensibility' is 10 elements. Fourth, the details of the SOC items for each theory are as follows: BFD focuses on 'Manageability' with 'Manageability'(74%) and 'Comprehensibility'(26%), but 'Meaningfulness' does not exist. And UD regards 'Comprehensibility'(66%) as important, and 'Manageability' and 'Meaningfulness' as 17%. BD, on the other hand, has a high percentage of 'Meaningfulness'(70%), 'Comprehensibility'(21%) and 'Manageability'(9%). Next, the 'Manageability' of HD and EBD is 46%. And HD was 'Meaningfulness'(34%), 'Comprehensibility'(20%), and EBD was 'Meaningfulness'(30%) and 'Comprehensibility'(24%). The three items of SOC showed different distribution according to the spatial planning theory. As a result of the analysis, the spatial planning theory with the 'Comprehensibility' was related to Universal Design(UD), and the spatial planning theory with the 'Manageability' was related to Barrier-Free Design(BFD). In addition, the spatial planning theory of 'Meaningfulness' was related to Bio-philic Design(BD). Therefore, the plan of the elderly welfare center needs to approach the multidimensional design methodology to enhance the SOC(Sense of Coherence).

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.105-126
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• 2017

Intelligibility has been widely regarded as an appropriate goal for second language pronunciation teaching. Yet there are few empirical studies that focus on the intelligibility of Korean learners' pronunciation. Therefore, this mixed-methods study examined the relationship among native-like pronunciation, intelligible pronunciation, phonological fluency and comprehensibility. Furthermore, this study investigated how native-like pronunciation and intelligible pronunciation are measured differently in terms of actual pronunciation skills. In addition, this study examined how these two pronunciation styles mutually influence each other. The results of this study show that achieving native-like pronunciation is a much more difficult goal than achieving intelligible pronunciation. It further shows that foreign accented pronunciation has little to do with comprehensibility while better intelligibility is needed for clearer comprehensibility. To achieve better intelligibility, this study recommends pronunciation teaching based on segments, suprasegmentals and fluency as the focus on suprasegmentals and fluency teaching are more important to achieve a native-like pronunciation. Besides the focus on phonology, there are other social factors which could influence the evaluation of native-like pronunciation, but are not part of this study. These findings are expected to contribute not only to a better understanding of pronunciation, but also to a more comprehensive reevaluation and informed direction of pronunciation teaching and research.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.883-898
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to examine that high school students recognize mathematical situation when they are requested for changing identical mathematics situations into different situations. The results of the study are followings. First, percentage of correct answers to the questions of turning equal mathematical situation into function is higher than the one of turning equal mathematical situation into equation and inequality. As a result of individual interview for comprehensibility of the students on these relations, it is found that if degree goes up and there is different expressions of questionaries although mathematical situation is identical, it affects comprehensibility of the subjects. Second, we found that they cannot understand identical mathematics situations because they have trouble in drawing graph or applying to get the answer while many students understand a point of intersection on the graph as a correct answer. Third, As a result of individual interview for comprehensibility of the students on relation between equation, inequality and function, we found that students manage to get correct answer even without perfect comprehensibility on this relation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.59-73
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• 2012

This study attempts to investigate the contribution of prosody to the foreign accent in Chinese speakers' English production by examining the synthesized speech of crossing native and non-native talkers' prosody and segments. For the stimuli of the foreign accent ratings, we transplanted gender-matched native speakers' prosody onto non-native talkers' segments and vice versa, utilizing the TD-PSOLA algorithm. Eight English native listeners participated in judging foreign accent and comprehensibility of the transplanted stimuli. Results showed that the synthesized stimuli were perceived as stronger foreign accent regardless of speakers' proficiency when English speakers' prosody was crossed with Chinese speakers' segments. This suggests that segments contribute more than prosody to native listeners' evaluation of foreign accent. When transplanted with English speakers' segments, Chinese speakers' prosody showed a difference in duration rather than pitch between high and low proficiency such that stronger foreign accent was detected when low proficient Chinese speakers' duration was crossed with English speakers' segments. This indicated that prosody, more specifically duration, plays a role though the prosodic role is not overall as significant as segments. According to the post acoustic analysis, the temporal features contributing to making the duration parameter prominent as opposed to pitch were found out to be speaking rate, pause duration and pause frequency. Finally, foreign accent and comprehensibility showed no significant correlation such that native listeners had no difficulty listening to highly foreign accented speech.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.96-101
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• 2007

Usually pictograms embedded in safety signs are such final means to transmit hazard information that the importance of them cannot be emphasized too much. Nevertheless, in Korea, few people are interested in safety signs and their functions so that evaluation of safety signs are seldom committed nor safety signs draw workers' attention to fulfill their functions. Therefore this research aimed to standardize the procedure for developing safety signs in order not only to give practical help to industrial workers but to match them international standards, and to develop a few examples through the suggested standard procedure. As results, a procedure for developing industrial safety signs was developed by combining both ANSI Z535.3 and ISO 9186 with a special emphasis on action inducibility as the former emphasized as well as comprehensibility as the latter suggested. According to test results with undergraduate students as well as industrial workers on a few signs developed through the suggested procedure, action inducibility was higher whereas confusion rate was lower than expected on one hand, and it could be concluded that the procedure would supply results that can be satisfied on the other hand.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.111-118
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• 2008

In usual safety signs are final means to transmit hazard information so that the importance of them cannot be emphasized too much. Nevertheless, in Korea, few people are interested in functions of safety signs so that evaluation of safety signs are seldom committed. This research was conducted to evaluate and compare perceptional characteristics of safety signs, especially "Fall" signs, by Semantic Differential Method and Multi-dimensional Scaling Method, with undergraduate students as well as industrial workers. According to research results on several signs evaluated high through suggested procedure, action inducibility was different for students majoring in different sciences, but it had common elements in the sense of 'openness' or 'arrangements'. Besides, perceptional images on safety signs were mainly recognized with bases of 'arrangement' for student group and 'simplicity' for industrial workers, respectively, and their maps corresponded well with each other by partial rotating so that students and workers seemed to recognize safety signs with similar factors though their name might be different. However, since perceptional characteristics including image map, comprehensibility, and action inducibility were similar for student group whereas those were not for worker group, it was concluded that the test for action inducibility would be absolutely necessary for safety signs for workers' group.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.550-558
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• 2002

This study was designed to examine the factors that influence the burnout of nurses practice healthcare in a hospital setting. Subjects for this study were 245 nurses working at University K hospital in Seoul, Korea. Data for this study was collected from 15 to 27 April, 2002. The data collection instruments used for this study are as follows: Maslach Burnout Inventory(1981), Orientation to Life Questionnaire(Sense of Coherence, SOC) by Antonovsky (1987) and Modified Coping Resources Inventory developed by author. The analysis of the data was completed using the descriptive, ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, and stepwise multiple regression using the SAS program software. The results of this study were as follows: 1. Total mean score of burnout was 4.0. Mean scores of the subscales were; emotional exhausion 4.7, personalization 3.7, and personal accomplishment 3.4.2. Significant statistical differences according to demographic characteristics of the subjects were found in the variables of age, job position, years of working, perceived job stress, and burnout. 3. Burnout was negatively related to sense of coherence(r=-.65) and coping resources (r=-.40); subscales of SOC of comprehensibility(r=-.57), manageability (r= -.55), and meaningfulness(r= -.52); subscales of coping of self-care(r=-.36), and cognitive coping(r=-.39). 4. Job stress was the highest factor influence burnout. Sixty-one percent of the total variance of burnout was experienced by variables of comprehensibility, meaningfulness, age, self-care, manageability and leisure activities including job stress. In conclusion, it was found that a low level of burnout was related to high scores of SOC and coping resources. Job stress, manageability, and meaningfulness were the highest factors influencing the level of subscale of emotional exhausion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Therefore, it is necessary to search for strategies to promote SOC and coping resources for reducing the level of burnout of nurses.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2012

Objectives: In chemical hazard communication, information receiver's perception is a important factor, but the study on the perception was few. Therefore, this study evaluated the perception of managers and workers group about chemical hazard communication by chemical hazard communication tools that were being used in fields. Methods: 91 managers and 238 workers were surveyed in two companies where use chemicals. All subjects were asked about the comprehensibility and perception for MSDS and GHS Pictograms being used in their workplaces through face-to-face interviews. Results: Most of the respondents knew MSDS, and more than half of the respondents had used MSDS once or more per year. The level of use to find the information on chemicals with MSDS was higher in the managers in comparison with workers. Also, the managers could understand and find the information on MSDS easier(p < 0.05). In the question asking the meaning of GHS Pictograms, the managers responded more correctly, as well(p < 0.05). 86.8% of the managers and 62.6% of the workers were conscious of the possible health hazards of chemicals that they could be exposed at work. However, among the respondents conscious of the health hazards, only less than 70% were well aware of the contents of the health hazards correctly. Conclusions: In chemical hazard communication, it is very important to evaluate whether information receiver have proper and correct knowledge and perception or not and actions based on the evaluations as well as provide correct information.