Filler Words: A Secret Facet of Conversational Realism
Blog post from Rime
Filler words, such as "um" and "uh," play a crucial role in making text-to-speech (TTS) conversations sound more natural and human-like. Often overlooked or derided, these words are essential for indicating social niceties, managing discourse-level moves, and facilitating conversational turn-taking. They are most commonly used at the beginning of utterances, between repetitions of small words, and before infrequent or complex phrases to allow speakers time to plan their speech or to emphasize certain words. Research highlights that while subtle gender differences exist in the usage of specific filler words, overall usage rates are consistent across genders and ages. The nuances of filler word usage vary across languages, underscoring the importance of understanding these subtleties for creating realistic TTS systems that effectively embody conversational norms.
No tracked trend matches for this post yet.
Use this post, company, and trend context to find content marketing opportunities, perform competitive analysis, or address product feature gaps via the Plushcap MCP server or the Plushcap API.