Frequency importance functions weight speech audibility by band significance

Evidence

If that were not enough, he also made substantial contributions to our knowledge of speech perception and developed a tool (originally called the Articulation Index, now revised to the Speech Intelligibility Index [SII]) that allows one to calculate the amount of speech information available in different frequency bands. The SII is able to robustly predict intelligibility scores for certain speech materials and acoustic environments (ANSI- 3.5, 2017) and is now used in industrial applications and to assess the impact of hearing loss on speech perception. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 90 (#expands, via linked claim)

Many stimuli in the environment contain relatively small spectral contrasts, and this illustration of the excitation pattern suggests that reduced frequency selectivity can have a real impact on the perception of sounds in our environment. Further, even small reductions of spectral contrast may be problematic when stimuli are masked. Thus, reduced frequency selectivity by listeners with sensorineural hearing loss is generally considered to translate into difficulties understanding both speech in quiet and speech in noise, as demonstrated by Baer and Moore (1993). They showed that simulated reduced frequency selectivity negatively impacted speech perception in noise. However, while reduced frequency selectivity is a clear problem for listeners with hearing loss, it is much less important to speech perception than the reduction in audibility caused by their hearing loss (Humes & Roberts, 1990). — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 575 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Speech intelligibility models need nonlinear SNR-importance functions for filtered sources; Each listener shows a stable, idiosyncratic weighting of frequency bands — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5757; Speech intelligibility indexes average signal-to-noise ratio across critical bands — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 90 (+5 more)

Related

• Speech intelligibility models need nonlinear SNR-importance functions for filtered sources (similarity 0.90)
• Speech intelligibility indexes average signal-to-noise ratio across critical bands (similarity 0.88)
• The range of SNRs contributing to speech intelligibility is wider than SII standards assume (similarity 0.88)
• Speech intelligibility depends on which frequency bands matter for specific materials. (similarity 0.86)
• Frequency importance varies nonlinearly across signal-to-noise ratios (similarity 0.84)
• Reduced frequency selectivity hurts speech perception less than reduced audibility does (similarity 0.83)
• Reverberation time and signal-to-noise ratio map onto the same speech intelligibility scale (similarity 0.82)
• Fundamental frequency differences between voices improve speech intelligibility (similarity 0.81)
• Speech intelligibility is the standard criterion for hearing function (similarity 0.81)
• Speech intelligibility can be predicted by measuring signal envelope modulation decay (similarity 0.81)
• Inhibitory networks that sharpen spectral peaks can aid listeners with reduced frequency selectivity (similarity 0.81)
• The SII model’s assumed SNR range fails for sharply filtered speech signals (similarity 0.81)
• The SII model mispredicts intelligibility of sharply filtered speech and noise (similarity 0.81)
• Speech discrimination requires intact frequency resolution (similarity 0.80)
• Impaired frequency selectivity directly causes poor speech discrimination (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Speech intelligibility indexes average signal-to-noise ratio across critical bands #expands (0.95) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 90
• Spectral modulation sensitivity at 0.5 cycles per octave best predicts vowel identification #complicates (0.80)
• Reduced frequency selectivity hurts speech perception less than reduced audibility does #complicates (0.78) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 575
• Speech discrimination requires intact frequency resolution #expands (0.75)
• Vowel identification models inject noise scaled to each user’s spectral modulation threshold #complicates (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1831
• Speech intelligibility saturates once the low-frequency target is attenuated 15 dB. #qualifies (0.72)