Improving speech intelligibility in fluctuating background interference
Name
965830699-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
2.12 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7e334ab7782b89d44e8fd62d408b3517
Author(s)
D'Aquila, Laura A
Advisor(s)
Charlotte M. Reed and Louis D. Braida.
Date Issued
2016
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The masking release (MR; i.e., better speech recognition in fluctuating compared to continuous noise backgrounds) that is evident for normal-hearing (NH) listeners is generally reduced or absent in hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. In this study, a signal-processing technique was developed to improve MR in HI listeners and offer insight into the mechanisms influencing the size of MR. This technique compares short-term and long-term estimates of energy, increases the level of short-term segments whose energy is below the average energy, and normalizes the overall energy of the processed signal to be equivalent to that of the original long-term estimate. In consonant-identification tests, HI listeners achieved similar scores for processed and unprocessed stimuli in quiet and in continuous-noise backgrounds, while superior performance was obtained for the processed speech in some of the fluctuating background noises. Thus, the energy-normalized signals led to larger values of MR compared to that obtained with unprocessed signals.
Description
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2016.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 41-42).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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