Further validation of a binaural model predicting speech intelligibility against envelope-modulated noises

Abstract

Collin and Lavandier [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 1146–1159 (2013)] proposed a binaural model predicting speech intelligibility against envelope-modulated noises, evaluated in 24 acoustic conditions, involving similar masker types. The aim of the present study was to test the model robustness modeling 80 additional conditions, and evaluate the influence of its parameters using an approach inspired by a variance-based sensitivity analysis. First, the data from four experiments from the literature and one specifically designed for the present study were used to evaluate the prediction performance of the model, investigate potential interactions between its parameters, and define their values leading to the best predictions. A revision of the model allowed to account for binaural sluggishness. Finally, the optimized model was tested on an additional dataset not used to define its parameters. Overall, one hundred conditions split into six experiments were modeled. Correlation between data and predictions ranged from 0.85 to 0.96 across experiments, and mean absolute prediction errors were between 0.5 and 1.4 dB.