Multi-band frequency compression for sensorineural hearing impairment

Author

Kulkarni, P.N. ; Pandey, P.C. ; Jangamashetti, D.S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Indian Inst. of Technol. Bombay, Mumbai, India

fYear

2009

fDate

5-7 July 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

Sensorineural hearing loss is associated with widening of the auditory filters, leading to increased spectral masking and degraded speech perception. Multi-band frequency compression can be used for reducing the effect of spectral masking. The speech spectrum is divided into a number of bands and spectral samples in each of these bands are compressed towards the band center, by a constant compression factor. In the present study, we have investigated the effectiveness of the scheme for different compression factors, in improving the speech perception. Evaluation of the scheme using the modified rhyme test showed maximum improvement in recognition scores for compression factor of 0.6: about 17 % for the normal-hearing subjects under simulated hearing loss, and 6-21 % for the subjects with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss.

Keywords

hearing; speech coding; speech processing; hearing loss; multiband frequency compression; sensorineural hearing impairment; spectral masking; speech perception; Auditory system; Bandwidth; Deafness; Degradation; Electronic mail; Filters; Frequency; Materials testing; Speech analysis; Speech coding; Sensorineural hearing loss; frequency compression; spectral masking;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Digital Signal Processing, 2009 16th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Santorini-Hellas

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-3297-4

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-3298-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICDSP.2009.5201179

Filename

5201179