Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 27, 2025
09:09
Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
743
Can background noise increase the informational masking in a speech mixture?
Virginia Best1, Christopher Conroy1, Gerald Kidd1
1Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USAginbest@bu.edu, cwconroy@bu.edu, gkidd@bu.edu.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|March 2, 2020
Summary
Adding background noise to speech mixtures worsens informational masking, making it harder to understand the target voice. This effect is mainly due to increased speech sparseness.
Area of Science:
- Auditory perception
- Speech processing
- Psychoacoustics
Background:
- Speech intelligibility is affected by masking, which can be energetic or informational.
- Energetic masking obscures target speech, while informational masking hinders auditory scene analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how adding background noise impacts both energetic and informational masking in speech perception.
- To determine the role of speech sparseness in noise-induced informational masking.
Main Methods:
- Participants listened to a target speech mixed with a masker speech in quiet and noisy conditions.
- Speech intelligibility was assessed using "glimpsed" speech paradigms to isolate energetic masking effects.
Main Results:
- Background noise significantly increased informational masking.
- The exacerbation of informational masking was primarily linked to increased speech sparseness.
Conclusions:
- Background noise amplifies informational masking, posing a significant challenge to speech intelligibility.
- Speech sparseness is a key factor mediating the negative impact of noise on auditory scene segregation.
Related Concept Videos
01:19Masking and Demasking Agents
3.3K
EDTA titrations may necessitate masking and demasking agents to temporarily protect a particular metal ion in a mixture from the EDTA reaction. These agents facilitate the sequential analysis of the metal ions by forming stable complexes with some—but not all—metal ions during certain steps.
There are many masking agents, such as cyanide, fluoride, triethanolamine, thiourea, and 2,3-bis(sulfanyl)propan-1-ol (formerly 2,3-dimercapto-1-propanol), with the masking agent chosen based on...
There are many masking agents, such as cyanide, fluoride, triethanolamine, thiourea, and 2,3-bis(sulfanyl)propan-1-ol (formerly 2,3-dimercapto-1-propanol), with the masking agent chosen based on...
3.3K
01:05Difference from Background: Limit of Detection
8.0K
The limit of detection (LOD) is the smallest amount of analyte that can be distinguished from the background noise. The LOD value corresponds to the concentration at which the analyte signal is three times larger than the standard deviation of the blank signal. Below this value, the analyte signal cannot be differentiated from the background noise. It is calculated by dividing the calibration slope by 3 times the standard deviation of the blank signals.
The LOD indicates the presence or absence...
The LOD indicates the presence or absence...
8.0K
00:53Sound Intensity Level
4.7K
Humans perceive sound by hearing. The human ear helps sound waves reach the brain, which then interprets the waves and creates the perception of hearing. The loudness of the environment in which a person is located determines whether they can distinguish between different sound sources.
The human ear can perceive an extensive range of sound intensity, necessitating the use of the logarithmic scale to define a physical quantity—the intensity level. It is a ratio of two intensities and...
The human ear can perceive an extensive range of sound intensity, necessitating the use of the logarithmic scale to define a physical quantity—the intensity level. It is a ratio of two intensities and...
4.7K
00:53Sound Waves: Interference
4.4K
Sound waves can be modeled either as longitudinal waves, wherein the molecules of the medium oscillate around an equilibrium position, or as pressure waves. When two identical waves from the same source superimpose on each other, the combination of two crests or two troughs results in amplitude reinforcement known as constructive interference. If two identical waves, that are initially in phase, become out of phase because of different path lengths, the combination of crests with troughs...
4.4K
01:17Sound as Pressure Waves
4.3K
Sound waves, which are longitudinal waves, can be modeled as the displacement amplitude varying as a function of the spatial and temporal coordinates. As a column of the medium is displaced, its successive columns are also displaced. As the successive displacements differ relatively, a pressure difference with the surrounding pressure is created. The gauge pressure varies across the medium.
The pressure fluctuation depends on the difference in displacements between the successive points in the...
The pressure fluctuation depends on the difference in displacements between the successive points in the...
4.3K
00:58Sound Intensity
4.6K
The loudness of a sound source is related to how energetically the source is vibrating, consequently making the molecules of the propagation medium vibrate. To measure the loudness of a source, the physical quantity of interest is the intensity. This is defined as the energy emitted per unit of time per unit of area perpendicular to the sound wave's propagation direction. Since the total energy is greater if the source vibrates for a longer duration and over a larger area, dividing the...
4.6K