Are there binaural consequences of speech envelope enhancement?

Lucas S. Baltzell; Daniel Cardosi; Jayaganesh Swaminathan; Virginia Best

doi:10.1121/10.0008360

Effect of Consonant-Vowel Ratio Modification on Amplitude Envelope Cues for Consonant Recognition

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.3402.415 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 415-426 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Richard L. Freyman ◽

G. Patrick Nerbonne ◽

Heather A. Cote

Keyword(s):

White Noise ◽

Intensity Ratio ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Amplitude Envelope ◽

Signal To Noise ◽

Noise Masking ◽

Spectral Cues ◽

Consonant Recognition ◽

Nonlinear Amplification ◽

Speech Envelope

This investigation examined the degree to which modification of the consonant-vowel (C-V) intensity ratio affected consonant recognition under conditions in which listeners were forced to rely more heavily on waveform envelope cues than on spectral cues. The stimuli were 22 vowel-consonant-vowel utterances, which had been mixed at six different signal-to-noise ratios with white noise that had been modulated by the speech waveform envelope. The resulting waveforms preserved the gross speech envelope shape, but spectral cues were limited by the white-noise masking. In a second stimulus set, the consonant portion of each utterance was amplified by 10 dB. Sixteen subjects with normal hearing listened to the unmodified stimuli, and 16 listened to the amplified-consonant stimuli. Recognition performance was reduced in the amplified-consonant condition for some consonants, presumably because waveform envelope cues had been distorted. However, for other consonants, especially the voiced stops, consonant amplification improved recognition. Patterns of errors were altered for several consonant groups, including some that showed only small changes in recognition scores. The results indicate that when spectral cues are compromised, nonlinear amplification can alter waveform envelope cues for consonant recognition.

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The Spatial Selective Auditory Attention of Cochlear Implant Users in Different Conversational Sound Levels

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm10143078 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (14) ◽

pp. 3078

Author(s):

Sara Akbarzadeh ◽

Sungmin Lee ◽

Chin-Tuan Tan

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Sound Level ◽

Auditory Attention ◽

Impaired Hearing ◽

Speech Stimuli ◽

Electric Hearing ◽

Sound Levels ◽

Acoustic Hearing ◽

Speech Envelope ◽

Different Levels

In multi-speaker environments, cochlear implant (CI) users may attend to a target sound source in a different manner from normal hearing (NH) individuals during a conversation. This study attempted to investigate the effect of conversational sound levels on the mechanisms adopted by CI and NH listeners in selective auditory attention and how it affects their daily conversation. Nine CI users (five bilateral, three unilateral, and one bimodal) and eight NH listeners participated in this study. The behavioral speech recognition scores were collected using a matrix sentences test, and neural tracking to speech envelope was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Speech stimuli were presented at three different levels (75, 65, and 55 dB SPL) in the presence of two maskers from three spatially separated speakers. Different combinations of assisted/impaired hearing modes were evaluated for CI users, and the outcomes were analyzed in three categories: electric hearing only, acoustic hearing only, and electric + acoustic hearing. Our results showed that increasing the conversational sound level degraded the selective auditory attention in electrical hearing. On the other hand, increasing the sound level improved the selective auditory attention for the acoustic hearing group. In the NH listeners, however, increasing the sound level did not cause a significant change in the auditory attention. Our result implies that the effect of the sound level on selective auditory attention varies depending on the hearing modes, and the loudness control is necessary for the ease of attending to the conversation by CI users.

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Neural tracking of the speech envelope in cochlear implant users

Journal of Neural Engineering ◽

10.1088/1741-2552/aae6b9 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 016003 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Ben Somers ◽

Eline Verschueren ◽

Tom Francart

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Speech Envelope

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Hemispheric Asymmetry in Auditory Processing of Speech Envelope Modulations in Prereading Children

Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1523/jneurosci.3209-13.2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 1523-1529 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

S. Vanvooren ◽

H. Poelmans ◽

M. Hofmann ◽

P. Ghesquiere ◽

J. Wouters

Keyword(s):

Auditory Processing ◽

Hemispheric Asymmetry ◽

Speech Envelope

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Speech Envelope Dynamics for Noise-Robust Auditory Scene Analysis in Robotics

International Journal of Humanoid Robotics ◽

10.1142/s0219843620500231 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Francesco Rea ◽

Austin Kothig ◽

Lukas Grasse ◽

Matthew Tata

Keyword(s):

Auditory Scene Analysis ◽

Scene Analysis ◽

Auditory Scene ◽

Speech Envelope ◽

Noise Robust

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Neural envelope tracking as a measure of speech understanding in cochlear implant users

10.1101/469643 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Eline Verschueren ◽

Ben Somers ◽

Tom Francart

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Cochlear Implants ◽

Closed Loop ◽

Objective Measure ◽

Speech Understanding ◽

Envelope Tracking ◽

Actual Speech ◽

Speech Envelope ◽

Electroencephalogram Eeg ◽

Automatic Fitting

ABSTRACTThe speech envelope is essential for speech understanding and can be reconstructed from the electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while listening to running speech. This so-called neural envelope tracking has been shown to relate to speech understanding in normal hearing listeners, but has barely been investigated in persons wearing cochlear implants (CI). We investigated the relation between speech understanding and neural envelope tracking in CI users.EEG was recorded in 8 CI users while they listened to a story. Speech understanding was varied by changing the intensity of the presented speech. The speech envelope was reconstructed from the EEG using a linear decoder and then correlated with the envelope of the speech stimulus as a measure of neural envelope tracking which was compared to actual speech understanding.This study showed that neural envelope tracking increased with increasing speech understanding in every participant. Furthermore behaviorally measured speech understanding was correlated with participant specific neural envelope tracking results indicating the potential of neural envelope tracking as an objective measure of speech understanding in CI users. This could enable objective and automatic fitting of CIs and pave the way towards closed-loop CIs that adjust continuously and automatically to individual CI users.

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