Why does a spectrogram, representing spoken language, show smearing of spectral energy when recorded in a reverberant room rather than an anechoic chamber?

💡 Explanation

The spectrogram displays energy distribution; spectral smearing arises from multipath propagation, because overlapping reflections of the original signal at different times broaden the energy distribution across frequencies. Therefore, multipath widens the energy distribution, rather than simple interference effects or frequency shifting.

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