Speech Intelligibility in a Realistic Virtual Sound Environment PDF Download

Author: Naim Mansour
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Eric M. Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hearing disorders
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The three manuscripts presented here examine concepts related to speech perception in noise and ways to overcome poor speech intelligibility without depriving listeners of environmental sound recognition. Because of hearing-impaired (HI) listeners’ auditory deficits, there is a substantial need for speech-enhancement (noise reduction) technology. Recent advancements in deep learning have resulted in algorithms that significantly improve the intelligibility of speech in noise, but in order to be suitable for real-world applications such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, these algorithms must be causal, talker independent, corpus independent, and noise independent. Manuscript 1 involves human-subjects testing of a novel, time-domain-based algorithm that fulfills these fundamental requirements. Algorithm processing resulted in significant intelligibility improvements for both HI and normal-hearing (NH) listener groups in each signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and noise type tested. In Manuscript 2, the range of speech-to-background ratios (SBRs) over which NH and HI listeners can accurately perform both speech and environmental recognition was determined. Separate groups of NH listeners were tested in conditions of selective and divided attention. A single group of HI listeners was tested in the divided attention experiment. Psychometric functions were generated for each listener group and task type. It was found that both NH and HI listeners are capable of high speech intelligibility and high environmental sound recognition over a range of speech-to-background ratios. The range and location of optimal speech-to-background ratios differed across NH and HI listeners. The optimal speech-to-background ratio also depended on the type of environmental sound present. Conventional deep-learning algorithms for speech enhancement target maximum intelligibly by removing as much noise as possible while maintaining the essential characteristics of the target speech signal. Manuscript 3 tests a new form of time-frequency masking that is designed to leave a small amount of background noise intact. The purpose of the unremoved background noise is to allow for environmental sound awareness while still providing significantly increased intelligibility. It was found that this type of processing resulted in significantly improved intelligibility and high environmental sound recognition performance for both types of listeners. It was also found that the same level of maximum attenuation provided the optimal balance of intelligibility and environmental sound recognition for both listener types.

Author: Rhoddy A. Viveros Muñoz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783832549633
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Listeners with hearing impairments have difficulties understanding speech in the presence of background noise. Although prosthetic devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants may improve the hearing capability, listeners with hearing impairments still complain about their speech perception in the presence of noise. The basic tonal audiometry only gives a cursory idea of the degree of difficulty in spoken communication caused by hearing loss because it does not assess the ability to understand speech. Therefore, the use of speech-in-noise tests to measure hearing loss in complex scenes is an integral part of a patient's audiological study. Most research has concentrated on studying only stationary sound sources, but in natural acoustic scenes, conversations may become very difficult to understand in the presence of moving sound sources such as a moving talker or a passing vehicle. Therefore, this thesis deals with quantifying speech perception in the presence of moving maskers through virtual sound sources presented binaurally via headphones. Significant differences in several conditions were found, revealing that the auditory system assesses differently the moving maskers than the stationary maskers. Therefore, the inclusion of moving conditions in clinical listening tests is recommended, in order to assess speech-in-noise perception in a more realistic environment.

Author: Robert Gilkey
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317780264
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 836

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The current popular and scientific interest in virtual environments has provided a new impetus for investigating binaural and spatial hearing. However, the many intriguing phenomena of spatial hearing have long made it an exciting area of scientific inquiry. Psychophysical and physiological investigations of spatial hearing seem to be converging on common explanations of underlying mechanisms. These understandings have in turn been incorporated into sophisticated yet mathematically tractable models of binaural interaction. Thus, binaural and spatial hearing is one of the few areas in which professionals are soon likely to find adequate physiological explanations of complex psychological phenomena that can be reasonably and usefully approximated by mathematical and physical models. This volume grew out of the Conference on Binaural and Spatial Hearing, a four-day event held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in response to rapid developments in binaural and spatial hearing research and technology. Meant to be more than just a proceedings, it presents chapters that are longer than typical proceedings papers and contain considerably more review material, including extensive bibliographies in many cases. Arranged into topical sections, the chapters represent major thrusts in the recent literature. The authors of the first chapter in each section have been encouraged to take a broad perspective and review the current state of literature. Subsequent chapters in each section tend to be somewhat more narrowly focused, and often emphasize the authors' own work. Thus, each section provides overview, background, and current research on a particular topic. This book is significant in that it reviews the important work during the past 10 to 15 years, and provides greater breadth and depth than most of the previous works.

Author: Jont B. Allen
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1598290088
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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This work extended the Bell Labs' speech articulation studies with ideas from Shannon's Information theory. Both Miller and Fletcher showed that speech, as a code, is incredibly robust to mangling distortions of filtering and noise. Regrettably much of this early work was forgotten. While the key science of information theory blossomed, other than the work of George Miller, it was rarely applied to aural speech research. The robustness of speech, which is the most amazing thing about the speech code, has rarely been studied. It is my belief (i.e., assumption) that we can analyze speech intelligibility with the scientific method. The quantitative analysis of speech intelligibility requires both science and art. The scientific component requires an error analysis of spoken communication, which depends critically on the use of statistics, information theory, and psychophysical methods.

Author: Jens Blauert
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9783540221623
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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- Speech Generation: Acoustics, Models and Applications (Arild Lacroix). - The Evolution of Digital Audio Technology (John Mourjopoulos). - Audio-Visual Interaction (Armin Kohlrausch) . - Speech and Audio Coding (Ulrich Heute) . - Binaural Technique (Dorte Hammerhoei, Henrik Moeller). - Auditory Virtual Environment (Pedro Novo). - Evolutionary Adaptions for Auditory Communication (Georg Klump). - A Functional View on the Human Hearing Organ (Herbert Hudde). - Modeling of Binaural Hearing (Jonas Braasch). - Psychoacoustics and Sound Quality (Hugo Fastl). - Semiotics for Engineers (Ute Jekosch). - Quality of Transmitted Speech for Humans and Machines (Sebastian Möller).

Author: Jens Blauert
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642377629
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
This book reports on the application of advanced models of the human binaural hearing system in modern technology, among others, in the following areas: binaural analysis of aural scenes, binaural de-reverberation, binaural quality assessment of audio channels, loudspeakers and performance spaces, binaural perceptual coding, binaural processing in hearing aids and cochlea implants, binaural systems in robots, binaural/tactile human-machine interfaces, speech-intelligibility prediction in rooms and/or multi-speaker scenarios. An introduction to binaural modeling and an outlook to the future are provided. Further, the book features a MATLAB toolbox to enable readers to construct their own dedicated binaural models on demand.

Author: Jerry V. Tobias
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hearing
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Author: Adam Westermann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Auditory masking
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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One of the greatest challenges for the auditory system is communicating in environments where speech is degraded by multiple spatially distributed maskers and room reverberation. This "cocktail-party" situation and the related auditory mechanisms have been a topic for numerous studies. This thesis primarily investigated speech intelligibility in such environments - specifically considering the role of differences in distance between talkers and the contribution of informational masking (IM).

Author: Eugene Brandewie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sound
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Speech intelligibility has been found to improve with prior exposure to a reverberant room environment. It is believed that perceptual mechanisms help maintain accurate speech perception under these adverse conditions. Potential factors underlying this speech enhancement effect were examined in three experiments. Experiment 1 studied the time course of speech intelligibility enhancement in multiple room environments. Carrier phrases of varying lengths were used to measure changes in speech intelligibility over time. Results showed an effect of speech enhancement with a time course that varied with the signal-to-noise ratio between the speech and a broad-band noise masker. Additionally, greater speech enhancement was found for reverberant environments compared to anechoic space, which suggests that a de-reverberation mechanism in the auditory system may enhance the temporal processing of speech. Experiment 2 examined the influence of the specific source and listener position within the room environment on speech enhancement. Source and listener configurations in three virtual room environments were altered to create a disparity between the position of a carrier phrase and a following speech target. Results showed robust effects of speech enhancement when the source and listener configuration were mismatched which suggests that speech enhancement relies on the general decay pattern of the room environment and not the specific temporal/spatial configuration of early reflections. Experiment 3 assessed the relationships between room-associated speech enhancement and single-reflection echo suppression by measuring echo thresholds for both a traditional click-based stimuli and with speech materials. Echo thresholds were found to be uncorrelated with the results of Experiment I. This suggests that early reflections have little impact on the de-reverberation aspect of speech enhancement, which is consistent with the results from Experiment II. A two-process hypothesis is proposed to account for the results of these experiments as well as previous research on this topic. Prior exposure to a speech pattern provided via carrier phrases is argued to elicit improved temporal processing of speech that results in speech enhancement. It is also argued that a process of de-reverberation effectively reduces the attenuation of temporal information in room environments.