Effects of reverberation, background talker number, and compression release time on signal-to-noise ratio

Reinhart, Paul; Zahorik, Pavel; Souza, Pamela E.

doi:10.1121/1.4994683

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…Specifically, the data were consistent with previous work in adults (Novick et al 2001;Shi and Doherty 2008), where the compression ratios were prescribed for each participant based on the degree of hearing loss and contrasts with work that used the same high 2.1:1 or 3:1 compression ratio for all participants Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2019). While using the same compression ratio for all participants induces greater temporal and spectral distortions, leading to poorer SNR in reverberation (Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2017) and greater variance…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Higher compression ratios in conjunction with fast attack and release times and greater numbers of channels improve audibility for low-input levels, maintain loudness comfort for high-input levels, and improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for negative SNRs. However, higher compression ratios are also associated with increased temporal and spectral distortion of the speech signal (Stone and Moore 1992;Bor, Souza, and Wright 2008;Naylor and Johannesson 2009;Kates 2010;Alexander and Rallapalli 2017;Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2017). These temporal and spectral distortions include reduced modulation depth (Stone and…”

Section: Effects Of Amplitude Compression Parameters On Acoustic Cues and Speech Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reverberation results in temporal smearing of both the desired signal and any undesired noise, resulting in decreased modulation depth of both speech and noise (Houtgast and Steeneken 1985) and increased temporal distortion . Reverberation also results in a smaller difference in SNR between different release times (Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2017).…”

Section: Effect Of Reverberationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…parameters on speech recognition in reverberation (Novick et al 2001;Shi and Doherty 2008;Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2017;Rallapalli and Alexander 2019;Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza 2019). Only Rallapalli and Alexander (2019) and Reinhart, Zahorik, and Souza (2019) included noise and none examined children.…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of Audibility and Distortion on Recognition of Reverberant Speech for Children and Adults with Hearing Aid Amplification

Brennan

McCreery

Massey³

2021

J Am Acad Audiol

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Background: Adults and children with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) have trouble understanding speech in rooms with reverberation when using hearing aid amplification. While the use of amplitude compression signal processing in hearing aids may contribute to this difficulty, there is conflicting evidence on the effects of amplitude compression settings on speech recognition. Less clear is the effect of a fast release time for adults and children with SNHL when using compression ratios derived from a prescriptive procedure. Purpose: To determine whether release time impacts speech recognition in reverberation for children and adults with SNHL and to determine if these effects of release time and reverberation can be predicted using indices of audibility or temporal and spectral distortion. Research Design: A quasi-experimental cohort study. Participants used a hearing aid simulator set to the Desired Sensation Level algorithm m[i/o] for three different amplitude compression release times. Reverberation was simulated using three different reverberation times. Participants: Participants were 20 children and 16 adults with SNHL. Data Collection and Analyses: Participants were seated in a sound-attenuating booth and then nonsense syllable recognition was measured. Predictions of speech recognition were made using indices of audibility, temporal distortion, and spectral distortion and the effects of release time and reverberation were analyzed using linear mixed models. Results: While nonsense syllable recognition decreased in reverberation; release time did not significantly affect nonsense syllable recognition. Participants with lower audibility were more susceptible to the negative effect of reverberation on nonsense syllable recognition. Conclusions: We have extended previous work on the effects of reverberation on aided speech recognition to children with SNHL. Variations in release time did not impact the understanding of speech. An index of audibility best predicted nonsense syllable recognition in reverberation and, clinically, these results suggest that patients with less audibility are more susceptible to nonsense syllable recognition in reverberation.

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Section: Accepted Manuscriptsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Effects Of Amplitude Compression Parameters On Acoustic Cues and Speech Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Of Reverberationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Influence of Audibility and Distortion on Recognition of Reverberant Speech for Children and Adults with Hearing Aid Amplification

Brennan

McCreery

Massey³

2021

J Am Acad Audiol

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“…Second, the temporal smearing would smooth out the internal signal representation that the compressor uses to determine the gain (for details see, e.g., Giannoulis, Massberg, & Reiss, 2012). This could lead to a more sluggish response and obscure the effects of varying time constants, as shown by Reinhart, Zahorik and Souza (2017). Precise control of the acoustical conditions together with the shadow-control approach employed here could help disentangle the previously mentioned phenomena.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Effects of Slow- and Fast-Acting Compression on Hearing-Impaired Listeners’ Consonant–Vowel Identification in Interrupted Noise

et al. 2018

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There is conflicting evidence about the relative benefit of slow- and fast-acting compression for speech intelligibility. It has been hypothesized that fast-acting compression improves audibility at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) but may distort the speech envelope at higher SNRs. The present study investigated the effects of compression with a nearly instantaneous attack time but either fast (10 ms) or slow (500 ms) release times on consonant identification in hearing-impaired listeners. Consonant–vowel speech tokens were presented at a range of presentation levels in two conditions: in the presence of interrupted noise and in quiet (with the compressor “shadow-controlled” by the corresponding mixture of speech and noise). These conditions were chosen to disentangle the effects of consonant audibility and noise-induced forward masking on speech intelligibility. A small but systematic intelligibility benefit of fast-acting compression was found in both the quiet and the noisy conditions for the lower speech levels. No detrimental effects of fast-acting compression were observed when the speech level exceeded the level of the noise. These findings suggest that fast-acting compression provides an audibility benefit in fluctuating interferers when compared with slow-acting compression while not substantially affecting the perception of consonants at higher SNRs.

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Verification of Estimated Output Signal-to-Noise Ratios From a Phase Inversion Technique Using a Simulated Hearing Aid

2023

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Purpose: The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for speech presented in background noise may vary after being processed by digital hearing aids with nonlinear signal processing algorithms, such as wide dynamic range compression (WDRC). A phase inversion technique has been previously developed to assess the output SNR of hearing aids. However, systematic validations of this technique have not been conducted. This study aims to validate the phase inversion technique. Method: A simulated hearing aid with multichannel WDRC was implemented, from which the output SNRs, computed via shadow filtering, for connected speech in background noise were directly computed. The agreement between the shadow filter output SNRs and those estimated using the phase inversion technique for the same stimuli was utilized to validate the phase inversion technique. The background noise was 2- or 20-talker babble noise, and the speech stimuli were presented at SNRs of −10 to +10 dB at the input of the simulated hearing aid. The simulated hearing aid was configured to provide amplification for four representative audiograms, and the WDRC was set to be fast or slow acting. To investigate the effects of additive noise, independent of the presented noise stimulus, on the phase inversion estimated output SNR, the same simulated hearing aid was implemented with an additive Gaussian noise at its input (45 and 60 dB SPL). Results: Results showed that the phase inversion technique could either overestimate or underestimate output SNR, depending on the test condition; the estimation errors tended to coincide with temporal landmarks, such as natural pauses between consecutive sentences or fricatives; and increasing the simulated noise led to poorer estimates of output SNR. Conclusions: Results imply that the accuracy of the phase inversion technique is dependent on the test conditions. Thus, the phase inversion technique should be used with caution, and its validity should be evaluated further.

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Effects of reverberation, background talker number, and compression release time on signal-to-noise ratio

Cited by 10 publications

References 10 publications

Influence of Audibility and Distortion on Recognition of Reverberant Speech for Children and Adults with Hearing Aid Amplification

Influence of Audibility and Distortion on Recognition of Reverberant Speech for Children and Adults with Hearing Aid Amplification

Effects of Slow- and Fast-Acting Compression on Hearing-Impaired Listeners’ Consonant–Vowel Identification in Interrupted Noise

Verification of Estimated Output Signal-to-Noise Ratios From a Phase Inversion Technique Using a Simulated Hearing Aid

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