A Study on Development of a Hearing Impairment Simulator considering Frequency Selectivity and Asymmetrical Auditory Filter of the Hearing Impaired

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a hearing impairment simulator considering reduced frequency selectivity and asymmetrical auditory filter of the hearing impaired, and we verified the reduced frequency selectivity and asymmetrical auditory filter affected in speech perception through experiments. The reduced frequency selectivity has made embodied by spectral smearing using LPC(linear prediction coding). The shapes of auditory filter are asymmetrical different with each center frequency. Hearing impaired person which has hearing loss was differently changed with that of normal hearing people and it has different value for speech of quality through auditory filter. The experiments confirmed subjective test and objective test. The subjective experiments are composed of 4 kinds of tests: pure tone test, SRT(speech reception threshold) test, and WRS(word recognition score) test without spectral smearing, and WRS test with spectral smearing. The experiment of the hearing impairment simulator was performed from 9 subjects who have normal ears. The amount of spectral smearing was controlled by LPC order. The asymmetrical auditory filter of proposed hearing impairment simulator was simulated and then some tests to estimate the filter's performance objectively were performed. The objective experiment as simulated auditory filter's performance evaluation method used PESQ(perceptual evaluation of speech quality) and LLR(log likelihood ratio) for speech through auditory filter. The processed speech was evaluated objective speech quality and distortion using PESQ and LLR value. When hearing loss processed, PESQ and LLR value have big difference according to asymmetrical auditory filter in hearing impairment simulator.