An Index to Measure "Transient-Ness" of Speech

Several studies have shown that emphasis of speech transients can improve the intelligibility of speech in noise. However, each study used a different method to define speech transients, and comparisons across methods are difficult. This paper introduces an index to quantify the transient nature of speech (specifically, the extent to which the onsets and offsets of formants are emphasized compared to steady segments) and applies the index to several versions of transient speech and to processed speech that have been described.