title: On a reference-free speech quality estimator for hearing aids.
abstract: A reference-free speech quality measure is proposed and assessed for hearing aid applications. The proposed speech quality metric is validated with subjective ratings obtained from hearing impaired listeners under a number of noisy and reverberant conditions. In addition, a comparison is drawn between the proposed measure and a state-of-the-art electroacoustic measure that relies on a clean reference signal. The results showed that the reference-free measure had a lower correlation with the subjective ratings of hearing aid speech quality in comparison to the correlations achieved by the measure utilizing a reference signal. Nevertheless, advantages of the reference-free approach are discussed.
authors: National Centre for Audiology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. dsuelzle@uwo.ca
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Suelzle
authors: Vijay
authors: V
authors: Parsa
authors: Tiago H
authors: TH
authors: Falk
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003198:Computer Simulation; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards*; D004867:Equipment Design; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011786:Quality Control; D012016:Reference Values; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception; D014732:Vibration