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

 

A. L. Padilla-Ortíz*, F. Orduña-Bustamante

 

Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, A.P. 70-186, Delegación Coyoacán, C.P. 04510, México D.F., México, E-mail: laura.padilla@ccadet.unam.mx

 

ABSTRACT

Subjective tests were carried out in order to investigate speech intelligibility, and the possible relative improvements that can be obtained in practical applications to acoustic communication systems, for different forms of presentation through headphones: monaural, monophonic, binaural at 0° (in front of the listener) and binaural at ±30° (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 SNR = —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 balanced words 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 speech intelligibility 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 0°. Additionally, results show that speech intelligibility improves slightly when the disturbing reverberation has a low interaural cross-correlation (IACC).

Keywords: Speech intelligibility, binaural sound, noise, reverberation, interaural cross-correlation.

 

RESUMEN

Se llevaron a cabo pruebas subjetivas de inteligibilidad de la voz, y las ventajas que pueden obtenerse en aplicaciones prácticas en sistemas de comunicación acústica, utilizando diferentes formas de presentación a través de audífonos: monoaural, monofónica, biaural a 0^o (frente al oyente) y biaural a ±30° (a la derecha o izquierda respecto al oyente), las señales se reprodujeron sin modificar, y también contaminadas con niveles extremos de ruido y reverberación, con una relación señal a ruido de SNR = -10 dB, y un tiempo de reverberación de T₆₀ = 10 s. Se estudió también la influencia de la correlación interaural (IACC) en las señales de voz contaminadas con ruido y reverberación. El material de voz empleado consistió en palabras en español fonéticamente balanceadas, emitidas por una mujer; las palabras se contaminaron con señales correlacionadas y no correlacionadas de ruido y reverberación. Los resultados muestran una ventaja en la escucha biaural para la inteligibilidad de la voz ante condiciones acústicas adversas, observándose también una ligera mejoría en presencia de ruido con alta correlación interaural, cuando el escucha no está directamente frente al orador, para ángulos acimutales de ±30°, comparado con la presentación frontal a 0^o. Adicionalmente, los resultados muestran que la inteligibilidad mejora cuando la reverberación tiene baja correlación interaural.

 

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