Title
Optimizing Speech Intelligibility in a Noisy Environment: A unified view
Abstract
Modern communication technology facilitates communication from anywhere to anywhere. As a result, low speech intelligibility has become a common problem, which is exacerbated by the lack of feedback to the talker about the rendering environment. In recent years, a range of algorithms has been developed to enhance the intelligibility of speech rendered in a noisy environment. We describe methods for intelligibility enhancement from a unified vantage point. Before one defines a measure of intelligibility, the level of abstraction of the representation must be selected. For example, intelligibility can be measured on the message, the sequence of words spoken, the sequence of sounds, or a sequence of states of the auditory system. Natural measures of intelligibility defined at the message level are mutual information and the hit-or-miss criterion. The direct evaluation of high-level measures requires quantitative knowledge of human cognitive processing. Lower-level measures can be derived from higher-level measures by making restrictive assumptions. We discuss the implementation and performance of some specific enhancement systems in detail, including speech intelligibility index (SII)-based systems and systems aimed at enhancing the sound-field where it is perceived by the listener. We conclude with a discussion of the current state of the field and open problems.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1109/MSP.2014.2365594
IEEE Signal Process. Mag.
Keywords
Field
DocType
acoustic noise,communication technology,speech processing,mutual information,noise measurement
Noise,Speech enhancement,Speech processing,Abstraction,Computer science,Speech recognition,Mutual information,Rendering (computer graphics),Cognition,Intelligibility (communication)
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
32
2
1053-5888
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
13
0.70
14
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
W. Bastiaan Kleijn11110106.92
Joao Bernardo Crespo2130.70
R. C. Hendriks3119885.30
Petko N. Petkov4263.62
Bastian Sauert5130.70
Peter Vary685275.52