Masking noises that mimic speech’s rhythm disrupt intelligibility more than loudness predicts

Evidence

Interfering noises that have similar rates of variation as speech are particularly difficult to deal with, as they fool our higher-order processing centers into attending to them as if they are speech. Because of this, their effect is often more severe than a simple measurement of level would indicate. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2481

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly are the acoustic signatures that trigger the ‘this is speech’ attention pathway? Worth chasing down the perception literature on talker-vs-source segregation.
• SEED: Material for an article on why chattering crowds, babble noise, or conversation-like din in cafes and offices are uniquely draining compared to steady hum — we cannot stop listening for possible speech.

Related

• Noise that varies at speech-like rates hijacks auditory attention (similarity 0.88)
• Interfering noises resembling speech’s modulation fool attention and exceed their level (similarity 0.87)
• Overly loud speech masks its own higher frequencies and gets less intelligible (similarity 0.86)
• Different noise types mask different specific speech sounds by matching their spectra (similarity 0.84)
• Speech-like noise fools the brain and harms intelligibility more than its level suggests (similarity 0.83)
• Loud speech can mask its own high-frequency components via upward spread of masking (similarity 0.82)
• Loud speech sounds can mask quieter ones within the same utterance for hearing-impaired listeners (similarity 0.82)
• Noise and reverberation distort concurrent speech perception through different mechanisms (similarity 0.82)
• Loudness constancy occurs regardless of whether sound is speech or noise (similarity 0.81)
• Speech-shaped noise can carry intelligible masked signals through amplitude modulation (similarity 0.81)
• Three acoustic properties determine whether a sound masks another. (similarity 0.81)
• Noise is defined relationally against the signal rather than acoustically (similarity 0.81)
• Both auditory and cognitive factors determine intelligibility in noise (similarity 0.81)
• Masking shifts thresholds upward and may alter just-noticeable sound changes at all levels. (similarity 0.81)
• Everyday speech communication usually occurs under partial masking conditions (similarity 0.81)