Predicting confusions and intelligibility of noisy speech

Current predictors of speech intelligibility are inadequate for making predictions of speech confusions caused by acoustic interference. This thesis is inspired by the need for a capability to understand and predict speech confusions caused by acoustic interference. The goal of this thesis is to develop models of auditory speech processing capable of predicting phonetic confusions by normally-hearing listeners, under a variety of acoustic distortions. In particular, we focus on modeling the Medial Olivocochlear efferent pathway (which provides feedback from the brain stem to the peripheral auditory system) and demonstrate its potential for speech identification in noise. Our results produced representations and performance that were robust to varying levels of additive noise and which mimicked human performance as measured by the Chi-squared test.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Messing, David P. (David Patrick), 1979-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Louis D. Braida.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42246

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/42246