title: Effects of noise suppression on intelligibility: dependency on signal-to-noise ratios.
abstract: The effects on speech intelligibility of three different noise reduction algorithms (spectral subtraction, minimal mean squared error spectral estimation, and subspace analysis) were evaluated in two types of noise (car and babble) over a 12 dB range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Results from these listening experiments showed that most algorithms deteriorated intelligibility scores. Modeling of the results with a logit-shaped psychometric function showed that the degradation in intelligibility scores was largely congruent with a constant shift in SNR, although some additional degradation was observed at two SNRs, suggesting a limited interaction between the effects of noise suppression and SNR.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom. g.hilkhuysen@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Gaston
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hilkhuysen
authors.forename: Nikolay
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gaubitch
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brookes
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huckvale
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013065:Speech Intelligibility / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult