Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.9718/JBER.2009.30.1.094

Development of a Hearing Impairment Simulator considering Frequency Selectivity of the Hearing Impaired  

Joo, S.I. (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Kil, S.K. (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Goh, M.S. (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Lee, S.M. (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Publication Information
Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research / v.30, no.1, 2009 , pp. 94-102 More about this Journal
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a hearing impairment simulator considering reduced frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired, and verify it's performance through experiments. The reduced frequency selectivity was embodied by spectral smearing using linear prediction coding(LPC). The experiments are composed of 4 kinds of tests; pure tone test, speech reception threshold(SRT) test, and word recognition score(WRS) test without spectral smearing and with spectral smearing. The experiments of the hearing impairment simulator were performed with 9 subjects who have normal hearing. The amount of spectral smearing was controlled by LPC order. The percentile score of WRS test without smearing is $89.78{\pm}2.420%$. The scores of WRS with 24th LPC order and with 8th LPC order are $88.00{\pm}3.556%$ and $83.78{\pm}2.123%$ respectively. It is verified that WRS score is lowered by decreasing LPC order. This is a reasonable result considering that spectral smearing is getting heavier according to decreasing LPC order. It is confirmed that spectral smearing using LPC simulates the reduced frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired and affects the clearness of speech reception.
Keywords
Hearing impairment simulator; Frequency selectivity; Linear prediction coding; Word recognition score;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Thomas Baer and B. C. J. Moore, 'Effects of spectral smearing on the intelligibility of sentences in noise,' J. Acoust. Soc. Am.94(3), pp. 1229-1241, 1993   DOI   ScienceOn
2 Moore, B. C. J., Glasberg, B. R., and Vickers, D. A. 'Factors influencing loudness perception in people with cochlear hearing loss,' Psychoacoustics, Speech and Hearing Aids, edited by B. Kollmeier, 1996
3 Moore, B. C. J., Skrodzka, E., 'Detection of frequency modulation by hearing-impaired listeners: Effects of carrier frequency, modulation rate, and added amplitude modulation,' J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 111, pp. 327-335, 2002   DOI   ScienceOn
4 Moore, B. C. J., Glasberg B, R. 'Comparisons of frequency selectivity in simultaneous and forward masking for subjects with unilateral cochlear impairments,' J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 80, pp. 93-107, 1986   DOI
5 Glasberg BR, Moore B. C. J. 'Auditory filter shapes in subjects with unilateral and bilateral cochlear impairments,' J Acoust. Soc. Am 79, pp. 1020-1033, Apr., 1986   DOI
6 Qian-Jie Fu, John J. Galvin,'Perceptual Learning and Auditory Training in Cochlear Implant Recipients,' Trends in Amplification, vol. 11, No. 3, 193-205, 2007   DOI   ScienceOn
7 Seungduck Hur, Youngsang Yu, Audiology 3rd Edition, Seoul, Dong-ah University Press, Apr., 2004
8 Moore, Brian, and Glasberg, Brian, 'Simulation of the effects of loudness recruitment and threshold elevation on the intelligibility of speech in quiet and in background of speech,' J. Acoust. Soc. Am, 94(4), pp. 2050-2062, 1993   DOI   ScienceOn
9 Quackenbush, S.R., Barnwell, T.P., Clements,M.A., Objective Measures of Speech Quality, Prentice-Hall, NJ, pp.47-51, 1988
10 Moore, B. C. J., Glasberg B, R. 'Suggested formulae for calculating auditory filter Bandwidth and excitation patterns,' J . Acoust. Soc. Am. 74, pp. 750-753, 1983   DOI   ScienceOn
11 D. M. Chabries et al, 'Application of a human auditory model to loudness perception and hearing compensation,' Proc. IEEE ICASSP, pp. 3527-3530, 1995