Impact of changes in liturgy on speech intelligibility in catholic church. Investigation through a room acoustic prediction software

State of the art room acoustics prediction algorithms allows for high quality simulations and auralisations that can successfully serve as a tool in historical research. In this article, we focus on evolution of speech intelligibility in the baroque church in Šamorín over the past years. The leading research question can be formulated as follows: What is the effect of liturgy on speech intelligibility in baroque sacral architecture since the Fourth Council of the Lateran to the present time? The synod convened by Pope Innocent III. is considered to be the most important council of the middle age. The changes of the liturgy extremely affected the perception of the sermon which were caused by a different position of the priest speaking to the people (the sound source to the audio receiver). The mentioned changes in liturgy and their impact on acoustic quantities were analyzed using an acoustic 3D model of the church in Slovakia which was built by the Order of St. Francis of Paola. We determined how many people present in the church were able to understand the sermon, which places were suitable for the worshippers and how the form of Baroque church has changes to contemporaneousness.