Cooke, Martin

Lecumberri, Maria Luisa García

Tang, Yan

Wester, Mirjam

English

Given the increasing use of sound output technologies in cluttered acoustic environments such as transport interchanges, it is of interest to discover ways to modify generated speech which maximise the likelihood of correct message reception, without resorting to excessive sound output level or repetitive announcements. Additionally, speech modifications deployed in public spaces should ideally be beneficial to all listeners, regardless of their first language

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Do non-native listeners benefit from speech modificationsdesigned to promote intelligibility for native listeners?Citation for published version:Cooke, M, Lecumberri, MLG, Tang, Y & Wester, M 2012, 'Do non-native listeners benefit from speechmodifications designed to promote intelligibility for native listeners?'. in Proceedings of The Listening TalkerWorkshop. pp. 59.Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Author final version (often known as postprint)Published In:Proceedings of The Listening Talker WorkshopGeneral rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 20. Feb. 2015Do non-native listeners benefit from speech modifications designed to promoteintelligibility for native listeners?Martin Cooke1,2, Maria Luisa Garcia Lecumberri2, Yan Tang2, Mirjam Wester31Ikerbasque (Basque Science Foundation), Bilbao, Spain2Language and Speech Laboratory, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, Spain3Centre for Speech Technology Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh UK1. MotivationGiven the increasing use of sound output technologies incluttered acoustic environments such as transport inter-changes, it is of interest to discover ways to modify gen-erated speech which maximise the likelihood of correctmessage reception, without resorting to excessive soundoutput level or repetitive announcements. Additionally,speech modifications deployed in public spaces shouldideally be beneficial to all listeners, regardless of theirfirst language.2. DesignWe compared the effect of a number of speech modifica-tion strategies in noise on native and non-native listeners.All were based on energy reallocation across time andfrequency under constant SNR and duration constraints[1, 2]. British English and Spanish listeners identifiedletter and digit keywords in short sentences for naturalspeech (original) and for six types of modification:SegSNR frame-wise SNR equalisationChanSNR frequency channel SNRs equalisedLocalSNR SNRs equalised in time-frequency regionSelectBoost energy reallocation to boost just-audibletime-frequency regionsPausing introduction of a short pause to avoid most in-tense noise epochCombined SelectBoost + PausingSpeech was presented mixed with either stationaryspeech-shaped noise (SSN) or speech envelope modu-lated noise (SMN) at a global SNR of -6 dB.3. ResultsWhile native and non-native listeners’ absolute scoresdiffered by about 14 percentage points, the pattern ofscores as a function of modification type was strikinglysimilar, with a correlation of 0.97 (see figure 1). For ex-ample, both listener groups benefitted most from selec-tive boosting of regions close to threshold, and both wereadversely affected by pausing in the presence of station-ary noise.45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 953035404550556065707580N score (%)NN score (%)ρ=0.974, p=0.000  originalSegSNRChanSNRLocalSNRSelectBoostPausingCombinedSMNSSNFigure 1: Native and non-native scores for natural andmodified speech in stationary and fluctuating noise.4. DiscussionSpeech signal modifications exist which are equally ef-fective for native and non-native listeners, suggesting thatthese modifications result in language-independent au-ditory changes which may be effectively transferred toother target languages and listener populations.Acknowledgement. This study was supported by theLISTA Project FET-Open grant no. 256230.5. References[1] Y. Tang and M. Cooke, “Energy reallocation strategies for speechenhancement in known noise conditions,” in Proc. Interspeech,Makuhari, Japan, 2010, pp. 1636–1639.[2] Y. Tang and M. Cooke, “Subjective and objective evaluation ofspeech intelligibility enhancement under constant energy and du-ration constraints,” in Proc. Interspeech, Florence, Italy, 2011, pp.345–348.

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Subjective and objective evaluation of speech intelligibility enhancement under constant energy and duration constraints,” in

Do non-native listeners benefit from speech modifications designed to promote intelligibility for native listeners?

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Do non-native listeners benefit from speech modifications designed to promote intelligibility for native listeners?

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