Comparaison de mesures perceptives et automatiques de l'intelligibilité : application à de la parole simulant la presbyacousie

International audienceCet article présente une étude comparative entre mesures perceptives et mesures automatiques de l'intelligibilité de la parole sur de la parole dégradée par une simulation de la presbyacousie. L'objectif est de répondre à la question : peut-on se rapprocher d'une mesure perceptive humaine en utilisant un système de reconnaissance automatique de la parole ? Pour ce faire, un corpus de parole dégradée a été spécifiquement constitué puis utilisé pour des tests perceptifs et enfin soumis à un traitement automatique. De fortes corrélations entre les performances humaines et les scores de reconnaissance automatique sont observées

Automatic speech recognition predicts speech intelligibility and comprehension for listeners with simulated age-related hearing loss

Purpose: To assess speech processing for listeners with simulated age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and to investigate whether the observed performance can be replicated using an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a system that will assist audiologists/hearing-aid dispensers in the fine-tuning of hearing aids. Method: Sixty young normal-hearing participants listened to speech materials mimicking the perceptual consequences of ARHL at different levels of severity. Two intelligibility tests (repetition of words and sentences) and one comprehension test (responding to oral commands by moving virtual objects) were administered. Several language models were developed and used by the ASR system in order to fit human performances. Results: Strong significant positive correlations were observed between human and ASR scores, with coefficients up to .99. However, the spectral smearing used to simulate losses in frequency selectivity caused larger declines in ASR performance than in human performance. Conclusion: Both intelligibility and comprehension scores for listeners with simulated ARHL are highly correlated with the performances of an ASR-based system. In the future, it needs to be determined if the ASR system is similarly successful in predicting speech processing in noise and by older people with ARHL

Julien Tardieu, chercheur en design sonore à l'IRCAM

cote interne IRCAM: Soulez06aNone / NoneNational audienceJulien Tardieu, chercheur en design sonore à l'IRCA

De l'ambiance à l'information sonore dans un espace public (méthodologie et réalisation appliquées aux gares)

Cette thèse souhaite montrer que l usage d un espace public, comme une gare, peut être amélioré grâce à de nouvelles formes d informations sonores. Dans une première étape, l étude de la perception des ambiances sonores montre que les représentations mentales des auditeurs sont construites autour de trois éléments: source sonore, activité humaine, effet de salle. Dans une gare, ces représentations correspondent aux différents types d espaces qui la composent. Ensuite, une expérience basée sur un trajet effectué par des usagers a permis de caractériser les proble mes rencontrés. Pour les résoudre, un cahier des charges a été écrit puis soumis à un compositeur qui a réalisé une signalétique sonore non-verbale. Enfin, les signaux sonores ont été validés in situ, par une expérience similaire à l étape précédente. Les signaux sont compris, et le nombre d erreur est diminué. Il est ainsi possible de trouver une solution sonore à des problèmes rencontrés par les usagers dans un espace public.PARIS-BIUSJ-Thèses (751052125) / SudocPARIS-BIUSJ-Physique recherche (751052113) / SudocSudocFranceF

Soundscape design in train stations: Perceptual study of soundscapes

cote interne IRCAM: Tardieu04cNone / NoneNational audienceCe papier présente deux expériences sur la perception des ambiances sonores des différents espaces qui composent une gare. La méthodologie employée ainsi que les résultats sont décrits

The sound navigation system at Montparnasse station

cote interne IRCAM: Kawakami06aNone / NoneNational audienceThere are few information at French railway station. People have to take attention to the visual sign to get the information of train departure time, corridor number, change the train etc. However, some stations of SNCF, which is the national railway company, are very large and have many lines, for instance, TGV, domestic, international line, so that it takes long time to find the right way to corridor. Some people seem to lose their ways while they are moving at the station. Then we thought that it was necessary to make the sound navigation system not to lose the way, and passengers were smoothly guided to their right destinations. Before this experiment, some research had been done to find the problem at the station, and we got the conclusion that people felt difficult to go to another place from main platform. From these researches, we chose one place for the sound installation, which was the passage from main platform to another platform at Montparnasse station in Paris. This reason was that people had to use the long moving walkway for three times, there were some exits on this way, and they could not see the destination because another platform was upper stair. After recording and analyzing the ambient sound of the station, we made some three types of sounds that were Attention, Feedback, and Time-line. Attention and Feedback sounds tell us the right way, and Time-line sound tells us the distance to the destination. 30 subjects selected the sound that went well with the sound navigation system in the laboratory. The highest score sounds were installed at the actual station, and the evaluation experiment was conducted. Consequently, some problems have been improved

Menu Sonification in an Automotive Media Center : Design and Evaluation

cote interne IRCAM: Misdariis11aNone / NoneNational audienceThe automobile needs to transmit to its driver, and its occupants, a certain amount of information relative to driving and the use of life systems on board (aid with navigation via GPS or radio, for example). The passenger compartment of the car thus becomes an increasingly demanding environment in terms of sensory attention; as Ho and Spence write in the introduction of [HO, 2008]: “the act of driving represents a highly complex skill requiring the sustained monitoring of integrated perceptual and cognitive inputs”. Information is most often presented in a visual form, with the help of signals and display boards on which texts and graphics appear. The sound modality is also mobilized when it is advantageous compared to the visual mode. This is particularly the case when the driver gets out of his1 vehicle and has therefore little chance to look at the dashboard (the sound warning “forgotten light” is part of this category). Another example is when an important message – which will require a rapid reaction from the driver – appears on a display: the sound then attracts the gaze towards the visual (the sound alarm “door open while moving” corresponds to this scenario). On this subject, it is interesting to greater than that caused by an auditory prompt. The automobile constructor nonetheless tries not to overload the passenger compartment with sound alarms, as sound in contrast to sight, is harder to ignore and can therefore very quickly become cumbersome: it is therefore advisable to use it wisely. That being said, driving – the main task to carry out when on board the vehicle – requires very sustained visual attention. The tasks on board, secondary to driving, must therefore be able to be carried out without impairing visual concentration to the detriment of driving. This is why the sound modality is, in theory, beneficial in assisting the driver in the use of multimedia systems, particularly when they offer increasingly varied functions. The benefit of these is also in the fact that they can be transposed to other domains where the notions of control and shared attention are also strategic, for example a plane cockpit or a control (or supervision) room. Resorting to the auditory modality to help navigation in these systems therefore meets a first priority challenge on board the vehicle: to ensure driving safety. The second challenge, of an ergonomic nature, is to create a sound human–machine interface that is easy to learn and use: it will need to be intuitive so that the driver can appropriate it quickly, without the risk of his driving being affected when he is using the multimedia system. Finally, a well designed sound interface, based on quality sounds, will have the effect of contributing to the global perception of the quality of the vehicle. In view of this, we are interested in the audification of an embedded system like an on- board computer (here called a multimedia center), allowing navigation in an information structure that is an part of the vehicle (functioning, navigation, etc.), includes personal data (music, photos, etc.) and mainly uses the auditory modality to leave the driver with all the concentration required by the driving situation. Integrated in a scientific approach, this study will focus on three main phases: 1. analysis: includes a phase involving the construction of a state of the art device leading to the definition of functional specifications and the choice of design method; 2. creation: this phase is associated with a sound composer/designer, the realization of sounds being carried out by implementation of the selected method; 3. validation: this is a phase of evaluation of the result on the basis of ad-hoc methodology and in relation to the initial specifications. This chapter presents this approach by giving details of the different stages of the process. After a presentation of the general context and the issue specific to the targeted application, the bibliographical study provides elements of state of the art that have enabled us to define an original design model. Then, after a summary of the approaches and methodological constraints relating to the experimentation in the domain of sound perception, the evaluation results of the model are discussed. In the conclusion, a discussion is opened regarding the general form of the results obtained, as well as the different possible axes to extend this work

Approche méthodologique pour l’amélioration de l’usage d’une gare par le sonore

cote interne IRCAM: Tardieu06bNone / NoneNational audienceAprès avoir longtemps travaillé sur le confort acoustique des voyageurs en gare, la SNCF souhaite désormais évaluer l’apport du design sonore. L’objectif du travail présenté ici est alors de proposer des solutions de design sonore pour l’amélioration de l’usage d’une gare. Ce travail a été effectué en collaboration étroite avec l’équipe Perception et Design Sonores de l'Ircam dont l'un des objectifs vise à développer des outils méthodologiques adaptés pour analyser un contexte d'usage dans le but de faciliter l'utilisation d'un objet ou le trajet dans un espace grâce à l'apport du sonore. Après une étude préliminaire sur l’ambiance sonore dans les gares, une étude sur l’usage des gares a été effectuée dans l’objectif d’identifier les problèmes rencontrés par des usagers. La méthodologie employée repose sur l’analyse de trajets tests effectués par des voyageurs présélectionnés. Les résultats ont permis d’écrire un cahier des charges pour la création d’une signalétique sonore afin de résoudre les problèmes identifiés. La signalétique sonore a été créée par le compositeur et professeur Hiroshi Kawakami qui a notamment, travaillé au Japon sur la signalétique sonore pour l'accueil et l'aide dans les lieux publics aux personnes ayant des déficiences visuelles. Cette signalétique sera testée expérimentalement dans la gare de Paris Montparnasse

Perceptual and automatic evaluations of the intelligibility of speech degraded by noise induced hearing loss simulation

International audienceThis study aims at comparing perceptual and automatic intelligibility measures on degraded speech. It follows a previous study that designed a novel approach for the automatic prediction of Age-Related Hearing Loss (ARHL) effects on speech intelligibility. In this work, we adapted this approach to a different type of hearing disorder: the Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), i.e., hearing loss caused by noise exposure at work. Thus, we created a speech corpus made of both isolated words and short sentences pronounced by three speakers (male, female and child) and we simulated different levels of NIHL. A repetition task has been carried out with 60 participants to collect perceptual intelligibility scores. Then, an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system has been designed to predict the perceptual scores of intelligibility. The perceptual evaluation showed similar effects of NIHL simulation on the male, female and child speakers. In addition, the automatic intelligibility measure, based on automatic speech recognition scores, was proven to well predict the effects of the different severity levels of NIHL. Indeed, high correlation coefficients were obtained between the automatic and perceptual intelligibility measures on both speech repetition tasks: 0.94 for isolated words task and 0.97 for sentences task

Mechanisms underlying the auditory continuity illusion: (Résumé)

cote interne IRCAM: Pressnitzer04kNone / NoneNational audienceMechanisms underlying the auditory continuity illusio