| Spectral restoration of speech: intelligibility is increased by inserting noise in spectral gaps. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 9055622 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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In order to function effectively as a means of communication, speech must be intelligible under the noisy conditions encountered in everyday life. Two types of perceptual synthesis have been reported that can reduce or cancel the effects of masking by extraneous sounds: Phonemic restoration can enhance intelligibility when segments are replaced or masked by noise, and contralateral induction can prevent mislateralization by effectively restoring speech masked at one ear when it is heard in the other. The present study reports a third type of perceptual synthesis induced by noise: enhancement of intelligibility produced by adding noise to spectral gaps. In most of the experiments, the speech stimuli consisted of two widely separated narrow bands of speech (center frequencies of 370 and 6,000 Hz, each band having high-pass and low-pass slopes of 115 dB/octave meeting at the center frequency). These very narrow bands effectively reduced the available information to frequency-limited patterns of amplitude fluctuation lacking information concerning formant structure and frequency transitions. When stochastic noise was introduced into the gap separating the two speech bands, intelligibility increased for "everyday" sentences, for sentences that varied in the transitional probability of keywords, and for monosyllabic word lists. Effects produced by systematically varying noise amplitude and noise bandwidth are reported, and the implications of some of the novel effects observed are discussed. |
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Authors:
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R M Warren; K R Hainsworth; B S Brubaker; J A Bashford; E W Healy |
Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Perception & psychophysics Volume: 59 ISSN: 0031-5117 ISO Abbreviation: Percept Psychophys Publication Date: 1997 Feb |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 1997-04-09 Completed Date: 1997-04-09 Revised Date: 2007-11-14 |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 0200445 Medline TA: Percept Psychophys Country: UNITED STATES |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 275-83 Citation Subset: C |
Affiliation:
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Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 53201, USA. rmwarren@csd.uwm.edu |
Export Citation:
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APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Adult Dichotic Listening Tests Dominance, Cerebral Female Humans Male Noise Perceptual Masking* Phonetics Psychoacoustics Sound Spectrography* Speech Acoustics Speech Intelligibility* Speech Perception* |
| Grant Support | |
ID/Acronym/Agency:
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DC00208/DC/NIDCD NIH HHS |
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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