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Using envelope modulation to explain speech intelligibility in the presence of a single reflection
Ramesh Kumar Muralimanohar1, James M Kates1, Kathryn H Arehart1
1Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, 2501 Kittredge Loop Road 409 UCB, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA muralima@colorado.edu, james.kates@colorado.edu, kathryn.arehart@colorado.edu.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|June 11, 2017
Summary
A single reflection
Area of Science:
- Acoustics and Auditory Perception
- Signal Processing in Auditory Systems
Background:
- Reverberation significantly impacts speech intelligibility in enclosed spaces.
- Understanding single reflections is crucial for modeling complex acoustic environments.
- Auditory models aid in simulating hearing impairments and their effects on sound perception.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the impact of single reflection delay and intensity on envelope modulations.
- To investigate the effects of these modulations on speech intelligibility.
- To explore the influence of sensorineural hearing loss on reflection distortion patterns.
Main Methods:
- Systematic variation of single reflection delay and intensity.
- Analysis of envelope modulations using within-auditory-band and across-band spectro-temporal methods (cepstral correlation coefficients).
- Simulation of sensorineural hearing loss using an auditory model.
Main Results:
- Short reflection delays minimally affected low-rate envelope modulations (<16 Hz) and predicted intelligibility.
- Longer delays caused significant distortion in envelope modulations at low rates.
- Similar distortion patterns were observed in both normal hearing and hearing impairment models.
Conclusions:
- Single reflections can distort envelope modulations, particularly at longer delays and low modulation rates.
- The impact on predicted intelligibility is dependent on reflection delay and modulation rate.
- Hearing impairment does not fundamentally alter the way single reflections distort envelope modulations.
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