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Effects of spectro-temporal modulation changes produced by multi-channel compression on intelligibility in a
Michael A Stone1, Brian C J Moore
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, England. mas19@cam.ac.uk
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|February 6, 2008
Summary
Speech intelligibility suffers when fast multi-channel compression is applied after mixing. Increasing the number and speed of compression channels further degrades understanding of target speech in noisy environments.
Area of Science:
- Acoustic science
- Speech perception
- Signal processing
Background:
- Previous research indicated single-channel fast compression degrades speech intelligibility.
- Compression applied after target and background speech mixing reduces intelligibility more than pre-mixing compression.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate the impact of multi-channel compression speed on speech intelligibility.
- Examine how the number of compression channels affects intelligibility.
- Understand the role of across-source modulation correlation in speech perception.
Main Methods:
- Utilized noise vocoders with varying numbers of channels (8, 12, 18).
- Manipulated the speed of multi-channel compression applied after speech signal mixing.
- Measured speech intelligibility across different compression parameters.
Main Results:
- Speech intelligibility decreased as the speed of multi-channel compression increased.
- Increasing the number of compression channels (1-12) also reduced intelligibility.
- Even slow compression (below 2 Hz) applied to an 8-channel vocoder impaired intelligibility.
Conclusions:
- Multi-channel compression, particularly when applied after mixing and at faster speeds, significantly degrades speech intelligibility.
- The findings suggest that "across-source modulation correlation" plays a crucial role in speech perception under these conditions.
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