• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.75-80
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• 2010

The present study tried to provide useful data for the acoustic design of sound amplification system with measuring and analyzing subjective preference and intelligibility by varying the number of speakers and their directivity. The results suggest that the room absorption plays a key role in subjective responses of listeners and the large sound absorption of ceiling contributes to the increase of intelligibility. Also, larger number of speakers with narrow directivity improves perceived intelligibility when speakers were installed at the lower height. However, the highest degree of intelligibility and preference were obtained when speakers were installed close enough to the sound absorptive ceiling. The highest intelligibility and preference were observed when 8 to 10 speakers with the directivity of 60 degree were used.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to compare functional hearing with the use of a personal sound amplification product (PSAP) or a basic hearing aid (HA) among sensorineural hearing impaired listeners. Subjects and Methods: Nineteen participants with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) (26-55 dB HL; pure-tone average, 0.5-4 kHz) were prospectively included. No participants had prior experience with HAs or PSAPs. Audiograms, speech intelligibility in both quiet and noisy environments, speech quality, and preference were assessed in three different listening conditions: unaided, with the HA, and with the PSAP. Results: The use of PSAP was associated with significant improvement in pure-tone thresholds at 1, 2, and 4 kHz compared to the unaided condition (all p<0.01). In the quiet environment, speech intelligibility was significantly improved after wearing a PSAP compared to the unaided condition (p<0.001), and this improvement was better than the result obtained with the HA. The PSAP also demonstrated similar improvement in the most comfortable levels compared to those obtained with the HA (p<0.05). However, there was no significant improvement of speech intelligibility in a noisy environment when wearing the PSAP (p=0.160). There was no significant difference in the reported speech quality produced by either device or in participant preference for the PSAP or HA. Conclusions: The current result suggests that PSAPs provide considerable benefits to speech intelligibility in a quiet environment and can be a good alternative to compensate for mild-to-moderate SNHL.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to compare functional hearing with the use of a personal sound amplification product (PSAP) or a basic hearing aid (HA) among sensorineural hearing impaired listeners. Subjects and Methods: Nineteen participants with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) (26-55 dB HL; pure-tone average, 0.5-4 kHz) were prospectively included. No participants had prior experience with HAs or PSAPs. Audiograms, speech intelligibility in both quiet and noisy environments, speech quality, and preference were assessed in three different listening conditions: unaided, with the HA, and with the PSAP. Results: The use of PSAP was associated with significant improvement in pure-tone thresholds at 1, 2, and 4 kHz compared to the unaided condition (all p<0.01). In the quiet environment, speech intelligibility was significantly improved after wearing a PSAP compared to the unaided condition (p<0.001), and this improvement was better than the result obtained with the HA. The PSAP also demonstrated similar improvement in the most comfortable levels compared to those obtained with the HA (p<0.05). However, there was no significant improvement of speech intelligibility in a noisy environment when wearing the PSAP (p=0.160). There was no significant difference in the reported speech quality produced by either device or in participant preference for the PSAP or HA. Conclusions: The current result suggests that PSAPs provide considerable benefits to speech intelligibility in a quiet environment and can be a good alternative to compensate for mild-to-moderate SNHL.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.67-82
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate relation and effect of PCC(Percentage of Correct Consonant) and nasalance score on the speech intelligibility and acceptability in adults with dysarthria by reading task of standardized passage. Ten adults with dysarthria and sixteen normal adults were participated in this study. PCC and nasalance score were measured through reading task of standardized passage. And, speech intelligibility and acceptability were examined using visual analogue criteria. The result of the study was as follows. First, the nasalance score of adults with dysarthria group is significantly higher than normal adults group in reading sample by standardized passage. Second, the PCC, speech intelligibility and acceptability shows significant correlation. However, the nasalance score doesn't show significant corelation with speech intelligibility and acceptability. These results suggest that PCC is closely related to speech intelligibility and speech acceptability, but nasalance score is not related to speech intelligibility and speech acceptability.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.79-90
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• 2021

This single-subject study examined the effects of repetitive speech training at the word and sentence levels using speech cues on the percentage of correct consonants (PCC) and speech intelligibility of children with cerebral palsy (CP). Three children aged between 5-8 years with a history of CP participated in the study. Thirty-minute intervention sessions were provided four times a week for four weeks. The intervention included repeated training of words and sentences containing target phonemes using two instructions of speech cues, "big mouse" and "strong voice". First, the children improved their average PCC and speech intelligibility, but an effect size analysis indicated that the effect was different for each child, and the effect size for speech intelligibility was higher than for PCC. Second, the intervention effect was generalized to untrained words and sentences. Third, the maintenance effects of PCC and speech intelligibility were very high. These findings suggests that repeated speech training using speech cues is an intervention technique that can help improve PCC and speech intelligibility in children with CP.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.169-178
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• 2009

In this study, we suggest Korean nonlinear fitting formula (KNFF) to maximize speech intelligibility for digital hearing aids based on NAL-NL1 (NAL-nonlinear, version 1). KNFF was derived from the same procedure which is used for deriving NAL-NL1. KNFF consider the long-term average speech spectrum of Korean instead of English because the frequency characteristic of Korean is different from that of English. New insertion gains of KNFF were derived using the SII (speech intelligibility index) program provided by ANSI. In addition, the insertion gains were modified to maximize the intelligibility of high frequency words. To verify effect of the new fitting gain, we performed speech discrimination test (SDT) and preference test using the hearing loss simulator from NOISH. In the SDT, a word set as test material consists of 50 1-syllable word generally used in hearing clinic. As a result of the test, in case of moderate hearing loss with severe loss on high frequency, the SDT scores of KNFF was more improved about 3.2% than NAL-NLl and about 6% in case of the sever hearing loss. Finally we have obtained the result that it was the effective way to increase gain of mid-high frequency bands and to decrease gain of low frequency bands in order to maximize speech intelligibility of Korean.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.51-65
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• 2011

This study attempts to investigate the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L), examining Chinese talkers' production of English liquids and its perception of native listeners and non-native Chinese and Korean listeners. An Accent Judgment Task was conducted to measure non-native talkers' and listeners' phonological proficiency, and two levels of proficiency groups (high and low) participated in the experiment. The English liquids /l/ and /r/ produced by Chinese talkers were considered in terms of positions (syllable initial and final), contexts (segment, word and sentence) and lexical density (minimal vs. nonminimal pair) to see if these factors play a role in ISIIB-L. Results showed that both matched and mismatched interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners occurred except for the initial /l/. Non-native Chinese and Korean listeners, though only with high proficiency, were more accurate at identifying initial /r/, final /l/ and final /r/, but initial /l/ was significantly more intelligible to native listeners than non-native listeners. There was evidence of contextual and lexical density effects on ISIB-L. No ISIB-L was demonstrated in sentence context, but both matched and mismatched ISIB-L was observed in word context; this finding held true for only high proficiency listeners. Listeners recognized the targets better in the non-minimal pair (sparse density) environment than the minimal pair (higher density) environment. These findings suggest that ISIB-L for English liquids is influenced by talkers' and listeners' proficiency, syllable position in association with L1 and L2 phonological structure, context, and word neighborhood density.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.187-192
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• 2019

Background and Objectives: Clear speech is an effective communication strategy used in difficult listening situations that draws on techniques such as accurate articulation, a slow speech rate, and the inclusion of pauses. Although too slow speech and improperly amplified spectral information can deteriorate overall speech intelligibility, certain amplitude of increments of the mid-frequency bands (1 to 3 dB) and around 50% slower speech rates of clear speech, when compared to those in conversational speech, were reported as factors that can improve speech intelligibility positively. The purpose of this study was to identify whether amplitude increments of mid-frequency areas and slower speech rates were evident in Korean clear speech as they were in English clear speech. Subjects and Methods: To compare the acoustic characteristics of the two methods of speech production, the voices of 60 participants were recorded during conversational speech and then again during clear speech using a standardized sentence material. Results: The speech rate and longterm average speech spectrum (LTASS) were analyzed and compared. Speech rates for clear speech were slower than those for conversational speech. Increased amplitudes in the mid-frequency bands were evident for the LTASS of clear speech. Conclusions:The observed differences in the acoustic characteristics between the two types of speech production suggest that Korean clear speech can be an effective communication strategy to improve speech intelligibility.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 2009

In this study, possibility of the laser eavesdropping is investigated on the window glasses with various thicknesses, Glass windows are excited by maximum length sequency (MLS) signal and the vibration sound is detected by a laser doppler vibrometer. From the detected sound, speech intelligibility is objectively estimated. Speech transmission index (STI), which is based on the modulation transfer function (MTF). is calculated for the estimation. Finally, disturbing wave effect on the speech intelligibility is analysed by using an outside speaker and a window shaker attached on the glass window. The purpose of the study is to estimate the possibility of remote eavesdropping by the laser sensor and to evaluate the performance of the homemade window shaker to protect from the remote eavesdropping.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.511-518
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• 2018

This paper deals with improving speech intelligibility by applying binary mask to time-frequency units of speech in noise. The binary mask is set to "0" or "1" according to whether speech is dominant or noise is dominant by comparing signal-to-noise ratio with pre-defined threshold. Bayesian classifier trained with Gaussian mixture model is used to estimate the binary mask of each time-frequency signal. The binary mask based noise suppressor improves speech intelligibility only in noise condition which is included in the training data. In this paper, speaker adaptation techniques for speech recognition are applied to adapt the Gaussian mixture model to a new noise environment. Experiments with noise-corrupted speech are conducted to demonstrate the improvement of speech intelligibility by employing adaption techniques in a new noise environment.