In this paper, we propose a new speech enhancement system using wavelet thresholding algorithm. In the proposed system, we introduce a new algorithm which does not require the voiced/unvoiced detection process. Also an adaptive threshold value and a new thresholding function are introduced to improve the speech enhancement performances and speech auditory quality. A voice activity detector (VAD...

The most popular features for speaker recognition are Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and linear prediction cepstral coefficients (LPCCs). These features are used extensively because they characterize the vocal tract configuration which is known to be highly speaker-dependent. In this work, several features are introduced that can characterize the vocal system in order to complement...

In an initial experiment (Wilson and Weakley, 2004), word recognition was assessed with six digit triplets presented at 14 signal-to-babble ratios (S/B) in 2 dB steps. An abbreviated version of the protocol was developed for clinic use involving three digit triplets at 7 S/Bs in 4 dB steps. The purpose of this experiment was to examine the relationship between the two digit protocols with compa...

This experiment tested the advantage of binaural presentation of an interfering noise in a task involving identification of monaurally-presented words. These words were embedded in three types of noise: a stationary noise, a speech-modulated noise and a speech-babble noise, in order to assess energetic and informational masking contributions to binaural unmasking. Our results showed important i...

The effortfulness hypothesis predicts that as background noise, age and hearing loss increase, the accuracy of memory recognition will decrease. Here we presented young and older adult listeners with sentences at three signalto-noise ratios in multitalker babble (∞, +15 dB, +5 dB) and probed subsequent recognition memory for these sentences as an offline measure of cognitive processing. Our res...

In this paper, we utilize speech signal to design sound-activated designation for confining an automaton to specific physical space. This work will present the design and analysis of multi-source extraction and localization to application of ubiquitous sound activation system. To extract a speaker sound from interference sources (such as a babble noise generated from TV playing), a multi-source...

Previous research has shown that voicing can influence the perception of consonant place of articulation (POA) in audiovisual (AV) speech perception, although findings are inconsistent and often differ with the use of background noise. The prediction in the current study was that the AV perception of voiced and voiceless stop consonant POA is influenced by the differences in spectral distributi...

Two auditory front ends which emulate some aspects of the human auditory system were compared using a high performance isolated word Hidden Markov Model (HMM) speech recognizer. In these initial studies, auditory models from Seneff [2] and Ghitza [4] were compared using both clean speech and speech corrupted by speech-like "babble" noise. Preliminary results indicate that the auditory models re...

Speech misperceptions provide a window into the processes underlying spoken language comprehension. One approach shown to catalyse robust misperceptions is to embed words in noise. However, the use of masking noise makes it difficult to measure the relative contributions of low-level auditory processing and higher-level factors which involve the deployment of linguistic experience. The current ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the contributions of energetic and informational masking to neural encoding and perception in noise, using oddball discrimination and sentence recognition tasks. DESIGN P3 auditory evoked potential, behavioral discrimination, and sentence recognition data were recorded in response to speech and tonal signals presented to nine normal-hearing adults. Stimuli were presen...