Speech segregation in rooms: monaural, binaural, and interacting effects of reverberation on target and interferer

Speech reception thresholds were measured in virtual rooms to investigate the influence of reverberation on speech intelligibility for spatially separated targets and interferers. The measurements were realized under headphones, using target sentences and noise or two-voice interferers. The room simulation allowed variation of the absorption coefficient of the room surfaces independently for target and interferer. The direct-to-reverberant ratio and interaural coherence of sources were also varied independently by considering binaural and diotic listening. The main effect of reverberation on the interferer was binaural and mediated by the coherence, in agreement with binaural unmasking theories. It appeared at lower reverberation levels than the effect of reverberation on the target, which was mainly monaural and associated with the direct-to-reverberant ratio, and could be explained by the loss of amplitude modulation in the reverberant speech signals. This effect was slightly smaller when listening binaurally. Reverberation might also be responsible for a disruption of the mechanism by which the auditory system exploits fundamental frequency differences to segregate competing voices, and a disruption of the "listening in the gaps" associated with speech interferers. These disruptions may explain an interaction observed between the effects of reverberation on the targets and two-voice interferers.     

Spatial release from masking in children with normal hearing and with bilateral cochlear implants: effect of interferer asymmetry

Spatial release from masking (SRM) was measured in groups of children with bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs, average ages 6.0 and 7.9 yr) and with normal hearing (NH, average ages 5.0 and 7.8 yr). Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured for target speech in front (0°), and interferers in front, distributed asymmetrically toward the right (+90°/+90°) or distributed symmetrically toward the right and left (+90°/-90°). In the asymmetrical condition both monaural "better ear" and binaural cues are available. In the symmetrical condition, listeners rely heavily on binaural cues to segregate sources. SRM was computed as the difference between SRTs in the front condition and SRTs in either the asymmetrical or symmetrical conditions. Results showed that asymmetrical SRM was smaller in BiCI users than NH children. Furthermore, NH children showed symmetrical SRM, suggesting they are able to use binaural cues for source segregation, whereas children with BiCIs had minimal or absent symmetrical SRM. These findings suggest that children who receive BiCIs can segregate speech from noise under conditions that maximize monaural better ear cues. Limitations in the CI devices likely play an important role in limiting SRM. Thus, improvement in spatial hearing abilities in children with BiCIs may require binaural processing strategies.     

Frequency dependence of binaural performance in listeners with impaired binaural hearing.

Binaural performance was measured as a function of stimulus frequency for four impaired listeners, each with bilaterally symmetric audiograms. The subjects had various degrees and configurations of audiometric losses: two had high-frequency, sensorineural losses; one had a flat sensorineural loss; and one had multiple sclerosis with normal audiometric thresholds. Just noticeable differences (jnd's) in interaural time, interaural intensity, and interaural correlation as well as detection thresholds for NoSo and NoS pi conditions were obtained for narrow-band noise stimuli at octave frequencies from 250-4000 Hz. Performance of the impaired listeners was generally poorer than that of normal-hearing listeners, although it was comparable to normal in a few instances. The patterns of binaural performance showed no apparent relation to the audiometric patterns; even the two subjects with similar degree and configuration of hearing loss have very different binaural performance, both in the level and frequency dependence of their performance. The frequency dependence of performance on individual tests is irregular enough that one cannot confidently interpolate between octaves. In addition, it appears that no subset of the measurements is adequate to characterize the performance in the rest of the measurements with the exception that, within limits, interaural correlation discrimination and NoS pi detection performance are related.     

Within-ear and across-ear interference in a dichotic cocktail party listening task: effects of masker uncertainty

Increases in masker variability have been shown to increase the effects of informational masking in non-speech listening tasks, but relatively little is known about the influence that masker uncertainty has on the informational components of speech-on-speech masking. In this experiment, listeners were asked to extract information from a target phrase that was presented in their right ear while ignoring masking phrases that were presented in the same ear as the target phrase and in the ear opposite the target phrase. The level of masker uncertainty was varied by holding constant or "freezing" the talkers speaking the masking phrases, the semantic content used in the masking phrases, or both the talkers and the semantic content in the masking phrases within each block of 120 trials. The results showed that freezing the semantic content of the masking phrase in the target ear was the only reduction in masker uncertainty that ever resulted in a significant improvement in performance. Providing feedback after each trial improved performance overall, but did not prevent the listeners from making incorrect responses that matched the content of the frozen target-ear masking phrase. However, removing the target-ear contents corresponding to the masking phrase from the response set resulted in a dramatic improvement in performance. This suggests that the listeners were generally able to understand both of the phrases presented to the target ear, and that their incorrect responses in the task were almost entirely a result of their inability to determine which words were spoken by the target talker.     

An analytical model to evaluate the cocktail party effect in restaurant dining rooms: A case study

This paper proposes the use of a simplified analytical model to evaluate acoustic conditions in restaurant dining rooms required for ensuring the intelligibility of conversations. The model is useful for design applications and is suitable for evaluating the maximum number of speakers present in a restaurant room in order to ensure intelligibility of conversations taking place at each table in the presence of background noise caused by conversations at other tables. The maximum number of speakers is studied in relation to the sound level difference between useful and disturbing sound, sound absorption of the room, and the average speaker–listener distance. The model is applied to the case of a dining hall in a multipurpose centre, which is currently in the planning stage.     

The foreign language cocktail party problem: Energetic and informational masking effects in non-native speech perception

Studies comparing native and non-native listener performance on speech perception tasks can distinguish the roles of general auditory and language-independent processes from those involving prior knowledge of a given language. Previous experiments have demonstrated a performance disparity between native and non-native listeners on tasks involving sentence processing in noise. However, the effects of energetic and informational masking have not been explicitly distinguished. Here, English and Spanish listener groups identified keywords in English sentences in quiet and masked by either stationary noise or a competing utterance, conditions known to produce predominantly energetic and informational masking, respectively. In the stationary noise conditions, non-native talkers suffered more from increasing levels of noise for two of the three keywords scored. In the competing talker condition, the performance differential also increased with masker level. A computer model of energetic masking in the competing talker condition ruled out the possibility that the native advantage could be explained wholly by energetic masking. Both groups drew equal benefit from differences in mean F0 between target and masker, suggesting that processes which make use of this cue do not engage language-specific knowledge.     

Monaural and binaural hearing directivity in the bottlenose dolphin: evoked-potential study

Hearing thresholds as a function of sound-source azimuth were measured in bottlenose dolphins using an auditory evoked potential (AEP) technique. AEP recording from a region next to the ear allowed recording monaural responses. Thus, a monaural directivity diagram (a threshold-vs-azimuth function) was obtained. For comparison, binaural AEP components were recorded from the vertex to get standard binaural directivity diagrams. Both monaural and binaural diagrams were obtained at frequencies ranging from 8 to 128 kHz in quarter-octave steps. At all frequencies, the monaural diagram demonstrated asymmetry manifesting itself as: (1) lower thresholds at the ipsilateral azimuth as compared to the symmetrical contralateral azimuth and (2) ipsilateral shift of the lowest-threshold point. The directivity index increased with frequency: at the ipsilateral side it rose from 4.7 to 17.8 dB from 11.2 to 128 kHz, and from 10.5 to 15.6 dB at the contralateral side. The lowest-threshold azimuth shifted from 0 degrees at 90-128 kHz to 22.5 degrees at 8-11.2 kHz. The frequency-dependent variation of the lowest-threshold azimuth indicates the presence of two sound-receiving apertures at each head side: a high-frequency aperture with the axis directed frontally, and a low-frequency aperture with the axis directed laterally.     

The effect of multimicrophone noise reduction systems on sound source localization by users of binaural hearing aids

This paper evaluates the influence of three multimicrophone noise reduction algorithms on the ability to localize sound sources. Two recently developed noise reduction techniques for binaural hearing aids were evaluated, namely, the binaural multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and the binaural multichannel Wiener filter with partial noise estimate (MWF-N), together with a dual-monaural adaptive directional microphone (ADM), which is a widely used noise reduction approach in commercial hearing aids. The influence of the different algorithms on perceived sound source localization and their noise reduction performance was evaluated. It is shown that noise reduction algorithms can have a large influence on localization and that (a) the ADM only preserves localization in the forward direction over azimuths where limited or no noise reduction is obtained; (b) the MWF preserves localization of the target speech component but may distort localization of the noise component. The latter is dependent on signal-to-noise ratio and masking effects; (c) the MWF-N enables correct localization of both the speech and the noise components; (d) the statistical Wiener filter approach introduces a better combination of sound source localization and noise reduction performance than the ADM approach.     

Late-onset auditory deprivation: effects of monaural versus binaural hearing aids

Performance on tests of pure-tone thresholds, speech-recognition thresholds, and speech-recognition scores for the two ears of each subject were evaluated in two groups of adults with bilateral hearing losses. One group was composed of individuals fitted with binaural hearing aids, and the other group included persons with monaural hearing aids. Performance prior to the use of hearing aids was compared to performance after 4-5 years of hearing aid use in order to determine whether the unaided ear would show effects of auditory deprivation. There were no differences over time for pure-tone thresholds or speech-recognition thresholds for both ears of both groups. Nevertheless, the results revealed that the speech-recognition difference scores of the binaurally fitted subjects remained stable over time whereas they increased for the monaurally fitted subjects. The findings reveal an auditory deprivation effect for the unfitted ears of the subjects with monaural hearing aids.     

The enhancement effect: evidence for adaptation of inhibition using a binaural centering task

The enhancement effect is consistently shown when simultaneously masked stimuli are preceded by the masker alone, with a reduction in the amount of masking relative to when that precursor is absent. One explanation for this effect proposed by Viemeister and Bacon [(1982). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 71, 1502-1507] is the adaptation of inhibition, which predicts that an enhanced component (the "target") will be effectively more intense within the auditory system than one that has not been enhanced. Forward masking studies have indicated this effect of increased gain; however, other explanations of the enhancement effect have also been suggested. In order to provide an alternative measure of the amount of effective gain for an enhanced target, a subjective binaural centering task was used in which listeners matched the intensities of enhanced and unenhanced 2-kHz tones presented to opposite ears to produce a centered stimulus. The results showed that the enhancement effect produces an effective 4-5 dB increase in the level of the enhanced target. The enhancement effect was also measured using other enhancement paradigms which yielded similar results over a range of levels for the target, supporting an account based on adaptation of inhibition.     

The effects of binaural spectral resolution mismatch on Mandarin speech perception in simulated electric hearing

This study assessed the effects of binaural spectral resolution mismatch on the intelligibility of Mandarin speech in noise using bilateral cochlear implant simulations. Noise-vocoded Mandarin speech, corrupted by speech-shaped noise at 0 and 5?dB signal-to-noise ratios, were presented unilaterally or bilaterally to normal-hearing listeners with mismatched spectral resolution between ears. Significant binaural benefits for Mandarin speech recognition were observed only with matched spectral resolution between ears. In addition, the performance of tone identification was more robust to noise than that of sentence recognition, suggesting factors other than tone identification might account more for the degraded sentence recognition in noise.     

Auditory handicap of hearing impairment and the limited benefit of hearing aids

The aim of this article is to promote a better understanding of hearing impairment as a communicative handicap, primarily in noisy environments, and to explain by means of a quantitative model the essentially limited applicability of hearing aids. After data on the prevalence of hearing impairment and of auditory handicap have been reviewed, it is explained that every hearing loss for speech can be interpreted as the sum of a loss class A (attenuation), characterized by a reduction of the levels of both speech signal and noise, and a loss D (distortion), comparable with a decrease in speech-to-noise ratio. On the average, the hearing loss of class D (hearing loss in noise) appears to be about one-third (in decibels) of the total hearing loss (A + D, hearing loss in quiet). A hearing aid can compensate for class-A-hearing losses, giving difficulties primarily in quiet, but not for class-D hearing losses, giving difficulties primarily in noise. The latter class represents the first stage of auditory handicap, beginning at an average hearing loss of about 24 dB.     

The effect of overlap-masking on binaural reverberant word intelligibility

Reverberation interferes with the ability to understand speech in rooms. Overlap-masking explains this degradation by assuming reverberant phonemes endure in time and mask subsequent reverberant phonemes. Most listeners benefit from binaural listening when reverberation exists, indicating that the listener's binaural system processes the two channels to reduce the reverberation. This paper investigates the hypothesis that the binaural word intelligibility advantage found in reverberation is a result of binaural overlap-masking release with the reverberation acting as masking noise. The tests utilize phonetically balanced word lists (ANSI-S3.2 1989), that are presented diotically and binaurally with recorded reverberation and reverberation-like noise. A small room, 62 m3, reverberates the words. These are recorded using two microphones without additional noise sources. The reverberation-like noise is a modified form of these recordings and has a similar spectral content. It does not contain binaural localization cues due to a phase randomization procedure. Listening to the reverberant words binaurally improves the intelligibility by 6.0% over diotic listening. The binaural intelligibility advantage for reverberation-like noise is only 2.6%. This indicates that binaural overlap-masking release is insufficient to explain the entire binaural word intelligibility advantage in reverberation.     

Statistical bias in the assessment of binaural benefit relative to the better ear

The comparison of measured binaural performance with the better of two monaural measures (one from each ear) may lead to underestimated binaural benefit due to statistical sampling bias that favors the monaural condition. The mathematical basis of such bias is reviewed and applied to speech reception thresholds measured in 32 bilateral cochlear implant (CI) users for coincident and spatially separated speech and noise. It is shown that the bias increases with test-retest variation and is maximal for uncorrelated samples of identical underlying performance in each ear. When measured differences between ears were assumed to reflect actual underlying performance differences, the bias averaged across the CI users was about 0.2 dB for coincident target and noise, and 0.1 dB for spatially separated conditions. An upper-bound estimate of the bias, based on the assumption that both ears have the same underlying performance and observed differences were due to test-retest variation, was about 0.7 dB regardless of noise location. To the extent that the test-retest variation in these data is comparable to other studies, the results indicate that binaural benefits in bilateral cochlear implant users are not substantially underestimated (on for average) when binaural performance is compared with the better ear in each listening configuration.     

The effect of random intensity fluctuation on monaural and binaural detection

Two experiments were performed to determine the effects of random intensity fluctuation on NoSo and NoS pi performance. Noise was used as both signal and masker, and stimuli were bands of noise from either 0-2.0 or 2.0-4.0kHz. Signal and masker were either coherent (from the same source) or noncoherent (from independent sources). In the first experiment, noise fluctuation was achieved by modulating a wide band of noise. In the second experiment, fluctuation was achieved by narrowing the noise bandwidth. Results from both experiments indicated that NoSo performance was adversely affected by fluctuation and by noncoherent relation between signal and masker. NoS pi detection was not adversely affected by fluctuation at low frequency, and was affected less adversely than was NoSo detection at high frequency. This difference between NoSo and NoS pi performance is an important consideration when making inferences about monaural and binaural processing when the stimuli are fluctuating rather than temporally steady.     

A cocktail party model of spatial release from masking by both noise and speech interferers

A mathematical formula for estimating spatial release from masking (SRM) in a cocktail party environment would be useful as a simpler alternative to computationally intensive algorithms and may enhance understanding of underlying mechanisms. The experiment presented herein was designed to provide a strong test of a model that divides SRM into contributions of asymmetry and angular separation [Bronkhorst (2000). Acustica 86, 117-128] and to examine whether that model can be extended to include speech maskers. Across masker types the contribution to SRM of angular separation of maskers from the target was found to grow at a diminishing rate as angular separation increased within the frontal hemifield, contrary to predictions of the model. Speech maskers differed from noise maskers in the overall magnitude of SRM and in the contribution of angular separation (both greater for speech). These results were used to develop a modified model that achieved good fits to data for noise maskers (ρ=0.93) and for speech maskers (ρ=0.94) while using the same functions to describe separation and asymmetry components of SRM for both masker types. These findings suggest that this approach can be used to accurately model SRM for speech maskers in addition to primarily "energetic" noise maskers.     

Effect of multiple speechlike maskers on binaural speech recognition in normal and impaired hearing.

Speech-reception thresholds (SRT) were measured for 17 normal-hearing and 17 hearing-impaired listeners in conditions simulating free-field situations with between one and six interfering talkers. The stimuli, speech and noise with identical long-term average spectra, were recorded with a KEMAR manikin in an anechoic room and presented to the subjects through headphones. The noise was modulated using the envelope fluctuations of the speech. Several conditions were simulated with the speaker always in front of the listener and the maskers either also in front, or positioned in a symmetrical or asymmetrical configuration around the listener. Results show that the hearing impaired have significantly poorer performance than the normal hearing in all conditions. The mean SRT differences between the groups range from 4.2-10 dB. It appears that the modulations in the masker act as an important cue for the normal-hearing listeners, who experience up to 5-dB release from masking, while being hardly beneficial for the hearing impaired listeners. The gain occurring when maskers are moved from the frontal position to positions around the listener varies from 1.5 to 8 dB for the normal hearing, and from 1 to 6.5 dB for the hearing impaired. It depends strongly on the number of maskers and their positions, but less on hearing impairment. The difference between the SRTs for binaural and best-ear listening (the "cocktail party effect") is approximately 3 dB in all conditions for both the normal-hearing and the hearing-impaired listeners.     

Monaural and binaural loudness of 5- and 200-ms tones in normal and impaired hearing

The difference in level required to match monaural and binaural loudness of 5- and 200-ms tones was measured for listeners with normal and impaired hearing. Stimuli were 1-kHz tones presented at levels ranging from 10 to 90 dB sensation level. Sixteen listeners (eight normal and eight with losses of primarily cochlear origin) made loudness matches between equal-duration monaural and binaural tones using an adaptive 2AFC procedure. The present results corroborate existing data for 200-ms tones in normal listeners and provide new data for 5-ms tones. On average, the binaural level difference required for equal loudness of monaural and binaural tones is about the same for 5- and 200-ms tones of equal level and changes as a function of level. The group data for normal and impaired listeners are in reasonable agreement with data in the literature. However, the data from some of the impaired listeners deviate markedly from the average, indicating that group data do not accurately represent the behavior of all impaired listeners. Derived loudness functions from the loudness-matching data are reasonably consistent with individual data in the literature.     

The effect of diotic and dichotic level-randomization on the binaural masking-level difference

Detection thresholds for tones in narrow-band noise were measured for two binaural configurations: N(o)S(o) and N(o)S(pi). The 30-Hz noise band had a mean overall level of 65 dB SPL and was centered on 250, 500, or 5000 Hz. Signals and noise were simultaneously gated for 500, 110, or 20 ms. Three conditions of level randomization were tested: (1) no randomization; (2) diotic randomization--the stimulus level (common to both ears) was randomly chosen from an uniformly distributed 40-dB range every presentation interval; and (3) dichotic randomization--the stimulus levels for each ear were each independently and randomly chosen from the 40-dB range. Regardless of binaural configuration, level randomization had small effects on thresholds at 500 and 110 ms, implying that binaural masking-level differences (BMLDs) do not depend on interaural level differences for individual stimuli. For 20-ms stimuli, both diotic and dichotic randomization led to markedly poorer performance than at 500- and 110-ms durations; BMLDs diminished with no randomization and dichotic randomization but not with diotic randomization. The loss of BMLDs at 20 ms, with degrees-of-freedom (2WT) approximately 1, implies that changes in intracranial parameters occurring during the course of the observation interval are necessary for BMLDs when mean-level and mean-intracranial-position cues have been made unhelpful.     

The effects of noise-bandwidth, noise-fringe duration, and temporal signal location on the binaural masking-level difference

The effects of forward and backward noise fringes on binaural signal detectability were investigated. Masked thresholds for a 12-ms, 250-Hz, sinusoidal signal masked by Gaussian noise, centered at 250 Hz, with bandwidths from 3 to 201 Hz, were obtained in N(0)S(0) and N(0)S(π) configurations. The signal was (a) temporally centered in a 12-ms noise burst (no fringe), (b) presented at the start of a 600-ms noise burst (backward fringe), or (c) temporally centered in a 600-ms noise burst (forward-plus-backward fringe). For noise bandwidths between 3 and 75 Hz, detection in N(0)S(0) improved with the addition of a backward fringe, improving further with an additional forward fringe; there was little improvement in N(0)S(π). The binaural masking-level difference (BMLD) increased from 0 to 8 dB with a forward-plus-backward fringe as noise bandwidths increased to 100 Hz, increasing slightly to 10 dB at 201 Hz. This two-stage increase was less pronounced with a backward fringe. With no fringe, the BMLD was about 10-14 dB at all bandwidths. Performance appears to result from the interaction of across-time and across-frequency listening strategies and the possible effects of gain reduction and suppression, which combine in complex ways. Current binaural models are, as yet, unable to account fully for these effects.