Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.9718/JBER.2009.30.6.529

A Study on Acoustic Masking Effect by Frame-Based Formant Enhancement  

Jeon, Yu-Yong (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Kim, Kyu-Sung (Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Inha University School of Medicine)
Lee, Sang-Min (Department of Electronic Engineering, Inha University)
Publication Information
Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research / v.30, no.6, 2009 , pp. 529-534 More about this Journal
Abstract
One of the characteristics of the hearing impaired is that their frequency selectivity is poorer than that of the normal hearing. To compensate this, formant enhancement algorithms and spectral contrast enhancement algorithms have been developed. However in some cases, these algorithms fail to improve the frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired. One of the reasons is the acoustic masking among enhanced formants. In this study, we tried to enhance the formants based on the individual masking characteristic of each subject. The masking characteristic used in this study was minimum level difference (MLD) between the first formant to the second formant while acoustic masking was occurred. If the level difference between the two formants in each frame is larger than the MLD, the gain of the first formant was decreased to reduce the acoustic masking that occurred among formants. As a result of the speech discrimination test, using formant enhanced speeches, speech discrimination score (SDS) of the speeches having differently enhanced formants was significantly superior to SDS of the speeches having equally enhanced formants. It means that suppression of the acoustic masking among formants improve frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired.
Keywords
formant; acoustic masking; speech enhancement;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 3  (Citation Analysis)
연도 인용수 순위
1 Paul Yanick, "Hearing aid with recruitment compensation," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.65, No.1, pp.287, 1979
2 H. M. Kim, S. M. Lee, "A Study of Korean Non-linear Fitting Formula based on NAL-NL1 for Digital Hearing Aids," Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research, Vol.030, No.02, pp.169-178, Feb., 2009   과학기술학회마을   ScienceOn
3 Dong Wook Kim, Young Woo Lee1, Jong Shill Lee, Young Joon Chee, Sang Min Lee2, In Young Kim, Sun I. Kim, "The Effect of the Speech Enhancement Algorithm for Sensorineural Hearing Impaired Listeners," Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research, Vol.028, No.06, pp.732-743, Dec., 2007   과학기술학회마을   ScienceOn
4 Ayasakanta Rout, "The effect of spectral enhancement on speech recognition performance of normal-hearing and hearingimpaired individuals," ETD collection of Purdue University, AAI3232232, 2006
5 Yuyong Jeon, Se-kee Kil, Kwang-sub Yoon, Sangmin Lee, "A Study of Acoustic Masking Effect from Formant Enhancement in Digital Hearing Aid," Journal of The Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea, Vol. 45 SC, No. 5, pp. 21-28, Oct, 2008
6 Irwin Pollack , "Auditory informational masking," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 57, IssueS1, p.S5, April 1975
7 Jun Yang, Fa-Long Luo and Arye Nehorai, "Spectral contrast enhancement: Algorithms and comparisons," Speech Communication, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp.33-46, Jan., 2003   DOI   ScienceOn
8 Lee Sangmin"A New Hearing Aid Algorithm for Speech Discrimination using ICA and Multi-band Loudness Compensation," Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research, Vol.026, No.03, pp.177-184, Jun., 2005   과학기술학회마을   ScienceOn
9 Krishnan A., Agrawal S., "Human Frequency Following Response: Evaluation of Upward Spread of Masking," Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Session R13, No.#21926, 2001
10 JB Allen, "Recruitment compensation as a hearing aid signal processing strategy," Circuits and Systems, 1998. ISCAS98. Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Symposium on, Vol.6, pp. 565-568, 1998