Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Temporal envelope and fine structure cues for speech intelligibility

R Drullman1

  • 1Department of Oto-rhino-laryngology, Free University Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|January 1, 1995
PubMed
Summary

Speech intelligibility relies more on temporal envelope peaks than troughs. Noise impacting modulations is more detrimental than direct envelope manipulation, highlighting the importance of temporal envelope processing for understanding speech.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Multichannel speech intelligibility and talker recognition using monaural, binaural, and three-dimensional auditory presentation.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2000
Same author

Audio-visual perception of compressed speech by profoundly hearing-impaired subjects.

Audiology : official organ of the International Society of Audiology·1997
Same author

Effect of reducing temporal intensity modulations on sentence intelligibility.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·1997
Same author

Effect of temporal modulation reduction on spectral contrasts in speech.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·1996
Same author

Speech intelligibility in noise: relative contribution of speech elements above and below the noise level.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·1995
Same author

Effect of reducing slow temporal modulations on speech reception.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·1994

Area of Science:

  • Auditory Perception
  • Speech Processing
  • Psychoacoustics

Background:

  • Speech intelligibility is crucial for communication.
  • Understanding the distinct roles of temporal envelope modulations and fine structure is key to auditory perception research.
  • Previous studies have explored various acoustic cues for speech comprehension.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relative importance of temporal envelope modulations versus fine structure in speech intelligibility.
  • To quantify the perceptual significance of modulation peaks and troughs within the temporal envelope.
  • To compare the effects of noise-induced versus direct envelope manipulation on speech reception.

Main Methods:

  • Listening experiments with 60 normal-hearing subjects.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Processing of amplitude envelopes across 24 1/4-octave bands (100-6400 Hz) using techniques like fast compression.
  • Assessment of speech intelligibility under conditions with manipulated temporal envelopes and added noise.

    • Main Results:

    • Reduction of modulations by noise addition significantly impaired sentence intelligibility compared to direct envelope manipulation, yielding speech-reception threshold (SRT) benefits up to 7 dB.
    • Two crossover levels were identified: one for perceptual equality and another for acoustic equality of envelope peaks and troughs.
    • Envelope peaks were found to be perceptually more important than troughs, with the perceptual level being 9-12 dB higher than the acoustic level.
    • Intact temporal speech envelopes combined with noise fine structure maintained perfect intelligibility.
    • No consistent one-to-one relationship was found between modulation-transfer function and intelligibility scores for the tested signal manipulations.

    Conclusions:

    • Temporal envelope peaks are perceptually more critical than troughs for speech intelligibility.
    • The integrity of the temporal envelope, particularly its peaks, is vital for understanding speech.
    • While temporal envelope modulations are crucial, the fine structure plays a lesser role when the envelope is preserved.