Understanding low-pass-filtered Mandarin sentences: Effects of fundamental frequency contour and single-channel noise suppression

Lei Wang; Dingchang Zheng; Fei Chen

doi:10.1121/1.5025168

Understanding low-pass-filtered Mandarin sentences: Effects of fundamental frequency contour and single-channel noise suppression

J Acoust Soc Am. 2018 Mar;143(3):EL141. doi: 10.1121/1.5025168.

Authors

Lei Wang¹, Dingchang Zheng², Fei Chen³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Xueyuan Road 1088#, Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518055, China wangl6@mail.sustc.edu.cn.
² Health and Wellbeing Academy, Faculty of Medical Science, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, United Kingdom dingchang.zheng@anglia.ac.uk.
³ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Xueyuan Road 1088#, Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518055, China fchen@sustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 29604692
DOI: 10.1121/1.5025168

Abstract

The present work assessed the effects of flattening the fundamental frequency (F0) contour and processing by single-channel noise suppression on the intelligibility of low-pass (LP)-filtered (LPF) sentences. The original F0 contour was replaced by an average flat F0 contour or treated by single-channel noise suppression, followed by application of LP filtering to Mandarin sentences. Processed stimuli were presented to normal-hearing listeners to recognize. Flattening the F0 contour significantly affected the understanding of LPF sentences. Noise suppression by existing single-channel algorithms did not improve the intelligibility of LPF sentences.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't