4.5 Article

The relative importance of spectral cues for vowel recognition in severe noise

Journal

JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Volume 132, Issue 4, Pages 2652-2662

Publisher

ACOUSTICAL SOC AMER AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1121/1.4751543

Keywords

-

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The importance of formants and spectral shape was investigated for vowel perception in severe noise. Twelve vowels were synthesized using two different synthesis methods, one where the original spectral detail was preserved, and one where the vowel was represented by the spectral peaks of the first three formants. In addition, formants F1 and F2 were suppressed individually to investigate the importance of each in severe noise. Vowels were presented to listeners in quiet and in speech-shaped noise at signal to noise ratios (SNRs) of 0, -5, and -10 dB, and vowel confusions were determined in a number of conditions. Results suggest that the auditory system relies on formant information for vowel perception irrespective of the SNR, but that, as noise increases, it relies increasingly on more complete spectral information to perform formant extraction. A second finding was that, while F2 is more important in quiet or low noise conditions, F1 and F2 are of similar importance in severe noise. (C) 2012 Acoustical Society of America. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4751543]

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.5
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available