Perceptual evaluation of audio watermarking using objective quality measures

This paper proposes objective quality measures adopted in speech processing for perceptual quality evaluation of audio watermarking. Different from using an auditory perception model that mimics human auditory system, objective quality measures are introduced as alternative approach to perceive the dissimilarities caused by audio watermarking. After embedding the watermark into a variety of audio signals from EBU database, we calculate the distance between the watermarked and host signals in terms of several well- developed quality measures. For correlation analysis, subjective listening tests and a commercial evaluation tool PEMO-Q are also used to grade the differences. Pearson correlation coefficients reveal that the investigated quality measures, especially weighted spectral slope (WSS) measure, correspond well with reference ratings. Moreover, quality measures run much faster than PEMO-Q. The results indicate that objective quality measures can be the perceptual quality predictors for audio watermarking.