To reduce time and costs in the development process of noise reduction algorithms, an objective intelligibility measure is crucial. Such a measure has to show high correlation with speech intelligibility determined by real listening experiments. In the past several measures were found that perform reliable in a particular scenario when only the spectral amplitude of a noisy signal is modified. ...

It is indispensable to establish an objective test methodology for noise-reduced speech. This paper proposes a new methodology which estimates word intelligibility of the noise-reduced speech from PESQ MOS (subjective MOS estimated by the PESQ). To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a word intelligibility test of the noise-reduced speech was performed by using four noise re...

Current evidence demonstrates that even though some non-native listeners can achieve native-like performance for speech perception tasks in quiet, the presence of a background noise is much more detrimental to speech intelligibility for non-native compared to native listeners. Even when performance is equated across groups, it is likely that greater listening effort is required for non-native l...

In contrast to common noise reduction systems, this contribution presents a digital signal processing algorithm to improve intelligibility of clean far end speech for the near end listener who is located in an environment with background noise. Since the noise reaches the ears of the near end listener directly and therefore can hardly be influenced, a sensible option is to manipulate the far en...

Most existing single-channel noise-suppression algorithms cannot improve speech intelligibility for normal-hearing listeners; however, the underlying reason for this performance deficit is still unclear. Given that various speech segments contain different perceptual contributions, the present work assesses whether the intelligibility of noisy speech can be improved when selectively suppressing...

Increased global interaction has led to increased communication between individuals with wide ranging linguistic experience. As a consequence, the ramifications of accent in speech production need to be better understood. It is plausible that differences in speech intelligibility due to accent type affect gross intelligibility in different ways. These differences may be differentially affected ...

In a previous study IT. Baer and B.C. J. Moore, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94, 1229-1241 (1993)], a spectral smearing technique was used to simulate some of the effects of impaired frequency selectivity so as to assess its influence on speech intelligibility. Results showed that spectral smearing to simulate broadening of the auditory filters by a factor of 3 or 6 had little effect on the intelligibil...

A number of techniques based on correlation measurements have recently been proposed to provide an objective measure of intelligibility. These techniques are able to detect nonlinear distortions and provide intelligibility scores highly correlated with those given by human listeners. However, the performance of these techniques has not been found satisfactory for measuring the speech intelligib...

BACKGROUND Changes to spoken communication are inevitable in Parkinson's disease (PD). It remains unclear what consequences changes have for intelligibility of speech. AIMS To establish the prevalence of impaired speech intelligibility in people with PD and the relationship of intelligibility decline to indicators of disease progression. METHODS 125 speakers with PD and age matched unaffect...

Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate different aspects of intelligibility in children and to develop reliable and valid methods for assessment. Method: Initially, four assessment methods were studied: multiple-choice assessment and transcription of single words, transcription of sentences and transcription of spontaneous speech. Audio recordings of 74 ten-year-old children wit...