Enhancement of Speech Intelligibility using Binary Mask Based on channel selection criteria

Abstract

Most of the existing noise reduction algorithms used in hearing aid applications apply a gain function in order to reduce the noise intervention. In the present paper, we study the effect of the two types of speech distortions introduced by the gain functions. If these distortions are properly controlled large gains in intelligibility can be obtained. The sentences were corrupted by various kinds of noises i.e. babble noise, car noise, helicopter noise and random noise and processed through a noise-reduction algorithm. Subjective tests were conducted with normal hearing listeners by presenting the processed speech with controlled distortions. The method proposed by Kim et al uses the wiener filter. Here in this paper, we have used the parametric wiener filter. The experimental results clearly indicated improvement in intelligibility at 0dB, -5dB, +5dB and 10dB input signal-to-noise (SNR) values in short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) and Segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SSNR) objective measures.