title: A psychoacoustic model for the noise masking of plosive bursts.
abstract: A model for predicting the masked thresholds of the voiceless plosive bursts /k,t,p/ in background noise is proposed. Because plosive bursts are brief, are generated by a noise source, and have different spectral characteristics, the modeling approach accounts for duration, center frequency, and signal bandwidth. Noise-in-noise masking experiments are conducted using a broadband masker and bandpass noise signals of varying bandwidth (100-5483 Hz), duration (10-300 ms), and center frequency (0.4-4 kHz). Data from these experiments are used to parametrize an auditory filter model in which the effective bandwidth and the signal-to-noise ratio at threshold for each filter are duration dependent. The duration-dependent filter model is then used to predict the thresholds of synthetic and naturally spoken plosive bursts in background noise. Finally, results from pilot notched-noise experiments are presented which support duration-dependent frequency selectivity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UCLA 90095, USA.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Hant
authors.forename: B P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Strope
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Alwan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test; D013071:Speech, Alaryngeal