Interactions Between Digital Noise Reduction and Reverberation: Acoustic and Behavioral Effects.
Background: Digital noise reduction (DNR) processing is used in hearing aids to enhance perception in noise by classifying and suppressing the noise acoustics. However, the efficacy of DNR processing is not known under reverberant conditions where the speech-in-noise acoustics are further degraded b...
| Publicado en: | Journal of the American Academy of Audiology Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 17 - 30 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Thieme Medical Publishing Inc.
Jan2020
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=141174902&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 141174902 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 10500545 9OC jtl: Journal of the American Academy of Audiology issn: 10500545 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jan2020 vid: 31 iid: 1 pid: 2811 pub: Thieme Medical Publishing Inc. place: New York, New York artinfo: ui: 141174902 141174902 141174902 10.3766/jaaa.18048 141174902 ppf: 17 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Interactions Between Digital Noise Reduction and Reverberation: Acoustic and Behavioral Effects. aug: au: Reinhart, Paul Zahorik, Pavel Souza, Pamela affil: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL sug: subj: Hearing Aids Speech Perception Noise Prevention and Control Acoustics Signal Processing, Computer Assisted Hearing Disorders Human Experimental Studies Listening Hearing Loss, Sensorineural Speech Intelligibility Algorithms Funding Source Middle Age Aged Aged, 80 and Over Male Female Storytelling Speech Discrimination Tests Two-Way Analysis of Variance T-Tests Post Hoc Analysis Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test Middle Aged: 45-64 years Aged: 65+ years Aged, 80 & over Male Female ab: Background: Digital noise reduction (DNR) processing is used in hearing aids to enhance perception in noise by classifying and suppressing the noise acoustics. However, the efficacy of DNR processing is not known under reverberant conditions where the speech-in-noise acoustics are further degraded by reverberation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate acoustic and perceptual effects of DNR processing across a range of reverberant conditions for individuals with hearing impairment. Research Design: This study used an experimental design to investigate the effects of varying reverberation on speech-in-noise processed with DNR. Study Sample: Twenty-six listeners with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing impairment participated in the study. Data Collection and Analysis: Speech stimuli were combined with unmodulated broadband noise at several signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). A range of reverberant conditions with realistic parameters were simulated, as well as an anechoic control condition without reverberation. Reverberant speech-in-noise signals were processed using a spectral subtraction DNR simulation. Signals were acoustically analyzed using a phase inversion technique to quantify improvement in SNR as a result of DNR processing. Sentence intelligibility and subjective ratings of listening effort, speech naturalness, and background noise comfort were examined with and without DNR processing across the conditions. Results: Improvement in SNR was greatest in the anechoic control condition and decreased as the ratio of direct to reverberant energy decreased. There was no significant effect of DNR processing on speech intelligibility in the anechoic control condition, but there was a significant decrease in speech intelligibility with DNR processing in all of the reverberant conditions. Subjectively, listeners reported greater listening effort and lower speech naturalness with DNR processing in some of the reverberant conditions. Listeners reported higher background noise comfort with DNR processing only in the anechoic control condition. Conclusions: Results suggest that reverberation affects DNR processing using a spectral subtraction algorithm in such a way that decreases the ability of DNR to reduce noise without distorting the speech acoustics. Overall, DNR processing may be most beneficial in environments with little reverberation and that the use of DNR processing in highly reverberant environmentsmay actually produce adverse perceptual effects. Further research is warranted using commercial hearing aids in realistic reverberant environments. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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