• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.651-660
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• 2019

The present study aims to find out the necessary speech sound level which can satisfy with the speech intelligibility in a noisy classroom environments. For this, auralized materials were made to undertake listening tests with 27 people. Speech intelligibility tests were carried out using both Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) and Phonetically Balanced Words (PBW) methods. Signal to noise ratio was changed by 5 dB for each test. As a result, it was found that speech intelligibilities are increasing with larger Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). It was also found that there is a lot of difference of speech intelligibilities by SNR for syllables (CVC) with the Reverberation Time (RT) of 1.5 s. However, any significant difference was not found for words (PBW) in the case with RTs of below 0.8 s. Also, it was revealed through the 2-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test that SNR is the only attentive factor which can affect the Korean speech intelligibilities for both PBW and CVC methods. Therefore, RTs below 0.8 s could be the acoustic criteria for classroom which can minimize the effects of noise. In the case with RTs larger than 0.8 s, much larger SNR is needed to give sufficient speech intelligibility.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.732-743
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• 2007

Background noise is one of the major complaints of not only hearing impaired persons but also normal listeners. This paper describes the results of two experiments in which speech recognition performance was determined for listeners with normal hearing and sensorineural hearing loss in noise environment. First, we compared speech enhancement algorithms by evaluation speech recognition ability in various speech-to-noise ratios and types of noise. Next, speech enhancement algorithms by reducing background noise were presented and evaluated to improve speech intelligibility for sensorineural hearing impairment listeners. We tested three noise reduction methods using single-microphone, such as spectrum subtraction and companding, Wiener filter method, and maximum likelihood envelop estimation. Their responses in background noise were investigated and compared with those by the speech enhancement algorithm that presented in this paper. The methods improved speech recognition test score for the sensorineural hearing impaired listeners, but not for normal listeners. The results suggest the speech enhancement algorithm with the loudness compression can improve speech intelligibility for listeners with sensorineural hearing loss.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1E
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• pp.8-13
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• 2007

It has long been known that high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (HFHL) can contribute to difficulty in speech understanding by elderly listeners. This study evaluated the relative contribution of HFHL and age to speech understanding. Subjects included adult middle-aged and old groups with normal hearing or with limited HFHL. The Hearing-in-Noise-Test (HINT) was used to measure speech perception performance in quiet and in noise. The middle-aged groups showed significant effects of HFHL for speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise, but the old groups showed the difference in quiet only due to high frequency hearing. The results suggest that HFHL may affect speech intelligibility differently with age and therefore hearing aid selection needs to take into account the influence of age.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.369-377
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• 2018

This study investigated the effect of noise and reverberation on subjective measure of speech transmission performance for elderly person with hearing loss in residential space through listening test. Floor impact, road traffic, airborne, and drainage noise were employed as the residential noise, and several impulse responses were obtained through room acoustical computer simulation for an apartment building. Sound sources for the listening test consisted of residential noises and speech sounds for boh the young (the original sound) and the aged (the sound filtered out by filters with frequency responses of hearing loss of 65 years elderly person). In the listening test, subjects evaluated speech intelligibility and listening difficulty for the presented word ($L_{Aeq}$ 55 dB) at three noise levels ($L_{Aeq}$ 30, 40, 50 dB) and three reverberation times (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 s). Results showed that the residential space with noise level lower than equal to 50 dB ($L_{i,Fmax,AW}$) for jumping noise and 40 dB ($L_{Aeq}$) for road traffic, airborne, and drainage noise had speech intelligibility of 90 % and over and listening difficulty of 30 % and below. Speech intelligibility and listening difficulty for the aged sound source was shown to be 0 % ~ 5 % lower and 2 % ~ 20 % higher than those for the young sound source, respectively.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.207-210
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• 2005

This paper suggests some guidelines on evaluating Korean text-to-speech systems in various aspects. Guidelines are suggested in terms of text analysis, intelligibility test and naturalness test and also in terms of generalities and specialties.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.02a
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• pp.9-22
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• 1996

Among the various dysarthric subtypes, diagnosis of ataxic dysarthria is rendered when the speech characteristics include imprecise and irregular articulatory breakdowns, marked degree of speech rate impairment, overall monopitch and monoloudness, and respiratory-articulatory incoordination. Traditionally, speech pathologists have relied only upon their ‘ears’ to describe and evaluate the dysarthric speech. A statement of percentage of correct words identified by a listener do not provide so much more than an index of severity. Within the same perceptual dimension, a carefully constructed speech intelligibility test can specify patterns of errors. The patterns can contain a diagnostic value as well as Provide strategies for remediation. The phonetically transcribed texts on single words and a standard passage, 'kail' produced by an ataxic dysarthria are presented in this report, with an emphasis of the articulatory error analysis. Furthermore,, acoustic tools [e.g., spectrography to measure formant transitions, segment durations, consonant spectra, etc.] are utilized to serve as basic measures that objectively document patients' speech intelligibility, Finally, the treatment methods [e.g., spectrography as a visual feedback, gestural reorganization using pacing method, DAF (Delayed Auditory Feedback)] to modify the dysarthric behaviors are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.30B no.10
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• pp.42-49
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• 1993

In this paper, we evaluate the quality of synthesized speech by rule using the LPC CD as a objective measure, and then compare the test result with the subjective one. Speech used for the test consists of 108 words which are selected by word construction method using Korean attribute and frequency distribution, synthesized by demi-syllable rule. By evaluating the quality of synthesized speech by reule objectively, we have tried to resolve the problems such as lots of evaluation time, expansion of test scale, and variables of analysis result arised by subjective measure. We have, also, proved the validity of the objective test using the LPC CD, by comparing intelligibility which is the index for the subjective quality evaluation of synthesized speech by rule with MOS. From this results, we can provide a guide for quality assessment that would be useful in the R&D of synthesis method and the commercial products using synthesized speech.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.18-30
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• 2021

The ultimate goal of the present study is to establish the acoustical performance standards of classroom for the elderly who are incomplete hearing people. As a pilot survey, the present study was conducted to investigate the listening environment and the actual condition of speech perception performance of education facilities for elderly, Acoustic performances of two education facilities for elderly in Cheongju were measured and questionnaire survey was done to elderly people. Also, speech intelligibility tests were undertaken by Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) and Phonetically Balanced Words (PBW) methods. The questionnaire survey showed that the elderly were satisfied with the listening environment of the educational facilities in general. Also, it was found that acoustical performances satisfy with the acoustic criteria of general classrooms in Korea. However, the results of the speech intelligibility test showed that the scores of elderly were significantly lower than twenties with normal hearing. It was also revealed that the scores are reduced as the age increases. Thus, it was concluded that the acoustical performance standards of educational facilities for the normal hearing were not suitable for educational facilities for the elderly.

• MALSORI
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• no.49
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• pp.63-75
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• 2004

Most existing telephone speech transmitted in current public networks is band-limited to 0.3-3.4 kHz. Compared with wideband speech(0-8 kHz), the narrowband speech lacks low-band (0-0.3 kHz) and high-band(3.4-8 kHz) components of sound. As a result, the speech is characterized by the reduced intelligibility and a muffled quality, and degraded speaker identification. Bandwidth extension is a technique to provide wideband speech quality, which means reconstruction of low-band and high-band components without any additional transmitted information. Our new approach considers to exploit harmonic synthesis method for reconstruction of low-band speech over the CELP coded speech. A spectral distortion measurement and listening test are introduced to assess the proposed method, and the improvement of synthesized speech quality was verified.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.281-293
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• 2014

This study is to help fine some factors of how the Initial food consumption ability affects articulation production and intelligibility in children at aged 4-15 with cerebral palsy. According to the factor analysis of articulation production, here are some positive articulation productions; the ability of mumbling and swallowing food, biting and swallowing and liquid diet, the experience of food consumption therapy, the use of specific methods or tools for food consumption, the behavior-problem during a meal and the beginning of the neck control. Therefore, the study finds that the Initial food consumption ability in children with spastic cerebral palsy may affect articulation production and intelligibility.