Mark Terry
CDSS Dept., Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303
Margaret Mortz
Univ. of Denver, Denver, CO
Previously the effectiveness of frequency shaping and compression achieved via manipulation of the short-term spectrum of telephone speech for mild-to-moderate hearing impaired individuals was presented [Terry et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, S169 (1990)]. This paper compares this technique with two analysis/resynthesis techniques designed to enhance the consonant parts of speech. In one system a time-domain auditory model (similar to the model proposed Goldstein [Hear. Res. 49, 39--60 (1990)] was used to analyze the speech. A set of consonant identifying features was then used to drive the resynthesis of the speech from the periodicity spectrum. In the other system the speech was resynthesized from LPC coefficients obtained via LPC analysis of the telephone speech signal. Again a set of consonant identifying features derived from LPC analysis was used to drive the resynthesis. The consonant-enhanced telephone band speech was presented to subjects with sensori-neural hearing loss. A consonant-confusion analysis will be presented comparing and evaluating both analysis/resynthesis techniques with a frequency shaping technique based on the subjects audiogram. [Work supported by US West.]