Skip to main content

Introduction and Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques to the Estimation of Binaural Speech Intelligibility

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
  • 1056 Accesses

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 63))

Abstract

We proposed and evaluated a speech intelligibility estimation method for binaural signals. The assumption here was that both the speech and competing noise are directional sources. We trained a mapping function between the subjective intelligibility and some objective measures. We attempted SNR calculation on a simple binaural to monaural mix-down, better SNR selection from left and right channels (better-ear), and a sub-band wise better-ear selection (band-wise betterear). For the mapping function training, we tried neural networks (NN), support vector regression (SVR), and random forests (RF). A combination of better-ear and RF gave the best results, with root mean square error (RMSE) of about 4% and correlation of 0.99 in a closed set test.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Edmonds, B.A., Culling, J.F.: The spatial unmasking of speech: Evidence for better-ear listening. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120(3), 1539–1545 (Sept 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  2. French, N.R., Steinberg, J.C.: Factors governing the intelligibility of speech sounds. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 19(1), 90–119 (1947)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Fujimori, M., Kondo, K., Takano, K., Nakagawa, K.: On a revised word-pair list for the Japanese intelligibility test. In: Proc. Int. Symp. on Frontiers in Sp. and Hearing Res. Tokyo, Japan (Mar 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Itahashi, S.: A noise database and Japanese common speech data corpus. J. Acoust. Soc. Japan 47(12), 951–953 (Dec 1991), in Japanese

    Google Scholar 

  5. Kondo, K.: Subjective Quality Measurement of Speech. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Ma, J., Hu, Y., Loizou, P.C.: Objective measures for predicting speech intelligibility in noisy conditions based on new band-importance functions. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125(5), 3387–3405 (May 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Quackenbush, S.R., III, T.P.B., Clements, M.A.: Objective Measures of Speech Quality. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Steeneken, H.J.M., Houtgast, T.: A physical method for measuring speech transmission quality. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 67(1), 318–326 (1980)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Taira, K., Kondo, K.: Estimation of binaural intelligibility using the frequencyweighted segmental SNR of stereo channel signals. In: Proc. APSIPA-ASC. pp. 101–104. Hong Kong (Dec 2015)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Wijngaarden, S.J., Drullman, R.: Binaural intelligibility prediction based on the speech transmission index. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 123(6), 4514–4523 (June 2008)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kazuhiro Kondo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Kondo, K., Taira, K. (2017). Introduction and Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques to the Estimation of Binaural Speech Intelligibility. In: Pan, JS., Tsai, PW., Huang, HC. (eds) Advances in Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 63. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50209-0_21

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50209-0_21

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50208-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50209-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics