Improving Speech Intelligibility Using Ideal Binary Mask

Document Type : Original Article (s)

Authors

1 MSc Student, Department of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, School of Medicine AND Student Research Committee, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Background: The application of the ideal binary mask (IBM) for speech signal processing provides remarkable intelligibility improvements in both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Binary mask widely applies to the time-frequency (T–F) representation of a noisy signal and eliminates units of a signal below a signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) threshold while retains others.Methods: The factors underlying intelligibility of ideal binary-masked speech were examined and evaluated in the present study. The effects of the local SNR threshold, input SNR level, masker type, and ideal mask-estimator were examined. New estimators including weighted Euclidean and COSH were proposed in which, the human perceptual auditory masking effect and perceptual perception were incorporated.Findings: High-performance plateau for SNR thresholds ranging from −20 to 5 dB was observed. Findings could be used for hearing-aid and cochlear-implant designs.Conclusion: Intelligibility of speech was high even at −10 dB SNR for all maskers tested. Performance assessment shows that our proposed estimators can achieve more significant noise estimation as compared to the Wiener estimator.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Isfahan Medical School
Volume 31, Issue 259 - Serial Number 259
September and October 2014
Pages 1787-1796

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History

  • Receive Date: 29 October 2013
  • Revise Date: 01 November 2024
  • Accept Date: 06 April 2022

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