Evaluation of Cough Sound Segmentation Algorithms in the Presence of Background Noise

Automated cough sound segmentation is important for the objective analysis of cough sounds. While various cough sound segmentation algorithms have been proposed over the years, it is not clear how these algorithms perform in the presence of background noise, which can vary in intensity across different environments. Therefore, in this study, we evaluate the performance of cough sound segmentation algorithms in the presence of background noise. Specifically, we examine algorithms employing conventional feature engineering and machine learning methods, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and a combination of CNNs and RNNs. These algorithms are developed using relatively clean cough signals but evaluated under both clean and noisy conditions. The results indicate that, while the performance of all algorithms declined in the presence of background noise, the combination of CNNs and RNNs yielded the best cough segmentation results under both clean and noisy conditions. These findings can contribute to the development of noise-robust cough sound segmentation algorithms for objective cough sound analysis in noisy conditions.