Development of a Dutch matrix sentence test to assess speech intelligibility in noise

Houben, Rolph; Koopman, J.; Luts, Heleen; Wagener, Kirsten C.; Wieringen, Astrid Van; Verschuure, Hans; Dreschler, Wouter A.

doi:10.3109/14992027.2014.920111

Cited by 66 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…To calculate , we make use of the direct-to-reverberation ratio, which can be written as [41] ( 43) where is the distance to the source, given by , and is the total absorption area. Given the T60 and the volume of the room, the total absorption area follows from Sabine's equation as (see e.g.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intelligibility test that was conducted is a closed Dutch speech-in-noise intelligibility test described in [43] that we use here as an intelligibility test for speech under noisy reverberant conditions. This intelligibility test consists of five-word sentences with a correct grammatical structure, similar to the one proposed by Hagerman in [44].…”

Section: Intelligibility Listening Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimal Near-End Speech Intelligibility Improvement Incorporating Additive Noise and Late Reverberation Under an Approximation of the Short-Time SII

Hendriks

Crespo

Jensen

et al. 2015

IEEE/ACM Trans. Audio Speech Lang. Process.

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The presence of environmental additive noise in the vicinity of the user typically degrades the speech intelligibility of speech processing applications. This intelligibility loss can be compensated by properly preprocessing the speech signal prior to playout, often referred to as near-end speech enhancement. Although the majority of such algorithms focus primarily on the presence of additive noise, reverberation can also severely degrade intelligibility. In this paper we investigate how late reverberation and additive noise can be jointly taken into account in the near-end speech enhancement process. For this effort we use a recently presented approximation of the speech intelligibility index under a power constraint, which we optimize for speech degraded by both additive noise and late reverberation. The algorithm results in time-frequency dependent amplification factors that depend on both the additive noise power spectral density as well as the late reverberation energy. These amplification factors redistribute speech energy across frequency and perform a dynamic range compression. Experimental results using both instrumental intelligibility measures as well as intelligibility listening tests show that the proposed approach improves speech intelligibility over state-of-the-art reference methods when speech signals are degraded simultaneously by additive noise and reverberation. Speech intelligibility improvements in the order of 20% are observed.Index Terms-Additive noise, approximated speech intelligibility index (SII), late reverberation, speech intelligibility.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Intelligibility Listening Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Near-End Speech Intelligibility Improvement Incorporating Additive Noise and Late Reverberation Under an Approximation of the Short-Time SII

Hendriks

Crespo

Jensen

et al. 2015

IEEE/ACM Trans. Audio Speech Lang. Process.

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“…Only the auditory domain optimization version of the algorithm was used in the listening experiments. Nine native Dutch speakers listened to 96 five-word sentences created from a closed set of words and had to select each word from a set of 10 [24]. Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simple Model of Speech Communication and its Application to Intelligibility Enhancement

Kleijn

Hendriks

2015

IEEE Signal Process. Lett.

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Abstract-We introduce a model of communication that includes noise inherent in the message production process as well as noise inherent in the message interpretation process. The production and interpretation noise processes have a fixed signal-to-noise ratio. The resulting system is a simple but effective model of human communication. The model naturally leads to a method to enhance the intelligibility of speech rendered in a noisy environment. State-of-the-art experimental results confirm the practical value of the model.

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“…These sentences were always presented from the front (at 1 m), and noise was either presented from the front or randomly from +90 or −90 degrees (at 1 m, S 0 /N s90 and S 0 /N f90 ). The stationary noise had an average power spectrum equal to that of the sentences . Additionally, a single‐talker male babble noise was used based on the International Speech Test Signal .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The stationary noise had an average power spectrum equal to that of the sentences. 19 Additionally, a single-talker male babble noise was used based on the International Speech Test Signal. 20,21 The level of noise was adaptively varied according to the Brand and Kollmeier procedure, 22 with a minimum step size of AE1 dB.…”

Section: Speech Intelligibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing aid fitting for visual and hearing impaired patients with Usher syndrome type IIa

Hartel¹,

Agterberg

Snik

et al. 2016

Clinical Otolaryngology

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ObjectivesUsher syndrome is the leading cause of hereditary deaf‐blindness. Most patients with Usher syndrome type IIa start using hearing aids from a young age. A serious complaint refers to interference between sound localisation abilities and adaptive sound processing (compression), as present in today's hearing aids. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of advanced signal processing on binaural hearing, including sound localisation.Design and participantsIn this prospective study, patients were fitted with hearing aids with a nonlinear (compression) and linear amplification programs. Data logging was used to objectively evaluate the use of either program. Performance was evaluated with a speech‐in‐noise test, a sound localisation test and two questionnaires focussing on self‐reported benefit.ResultsData logging confirmed that the reported use of hearing aids was high. The linear program was used significantly more often (average use: 77%) than the nonlinear program (average use: 17%). The results for speech intelligibility in noise and sound localisation did not show a significant difference between type of amplification. However, the self‐reported outcomes showed higher scores on ‘ease of communication’ and overall benefit, and significant lower scores on disability for the new hearing aids when compared to their previous hearing aids with compression amplification.ConclusionsPatients with Usher syndrome type IIa prefer a linear amplification over nonlinear amplification when fitted with novel hearing aids. Apart from a significantly higher logged use, no difference in speech in noise and sound localisation was observed between linear and nonlinear amplification with the currently used tests. Further research is needed to evaluate the reasons behind the preference for the linear settings.

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Development of a Dutch matrix sentence test to assess speech intelligibility in noise

Abstract: The matrix test is now also available in Dutch and can be used in both Flanders and the Netherlands.

Cited by 66 publications

References 8 publications

Optimal Near-End Speech Intelligibility Improvement Incorporating Additive Noise and Late Reverberation Under an Approximation of the Short-Time SII

Optimal Near-End Speech Intelligibility Improvement Incorporating Additive Noise and Late Reverberation Under an Approximation of the Short-Time SII

A Simple Model of Speech Communication and its Application to Intelligibility Enhancement

Hearing aid fitting for visual and hearing impaired patients with Usher syndrome type IIa

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