Binaural Speech Intelligibility and Interaural Cross-Correlation Under Disturbing Noise and Reverberation

Subjective tests were carried out in order to investigate speech intelligibility, and the possiblerelative improvements that can be obtained in practical applications to acoustic communication systems, for different forms of presentationthrough headphones: monaural, monophonic, binaural at 0º (in fr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: A. L. Padilla-Ortíz, F. Orduña-Bustamante
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:México
Institución:Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Repositorio:Redalyc-UNAM
OAI Identifier:oai:redalyc.org:47423208005
Acceso en línea:https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=47423208005
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ingeniería
noise
correlation
reverberation
binaural sound
interaural cross
Descripción
Sumario:Subjective tests were carried out in order to investigate speech intelligibility, and the possiblerelative improvements that can be obtained in practical applications to acoustic communication systems, for different forms of presentationthrough headphones: monaural, monophonic, binaural at 0º (in front of the listener) and binaural at ±30º (right or left, relative to the listener), played back undisturbed, and also with the addition of extreme levels of disturbing noise and reverberation, with a signal to noise ratio of SRN = ¿10 DB, and a reverberation time of T60 = 10 s. The influence of interaural cross-correlation (IACC) of the disturbance on speech intelligibility was also studied. Phonetically balancedwords in Spanish, uttered by a female speaker, were used as speech material, which were contaminated with interaurally correlated and uncorrelated noise and reverberation. Results indicate advantages of binaural speechintelligibility under adverse listening conditions; with slight improvements observed when listening under interaurally correlated noise at an angle off-center, for azimuth angles of ±30°, relative to listening at 0º. Additionally, results showthat speech intelligibility improves slightly when the disturbing reverberation has a low interauralcross-correlation (IACC).