A psychoacoustic model for the noise masking of plosive bursts.

A model for predicting the masked thresholds of the voiceless plosive bursts /k,t,p/ in background noise is proposed. Because plosive bursts are brief, are generated by a noise source, and have different spectral characteristics, the modeling approach accounts for duration, center frequency, and signal bandwidth. Noise-in-noise masking experiments are conducted using a broadband masker and bandpass noise signals of varying bandwidth (100-5483 Hz), duration (10-300 ms), and center frequency (0.4-4 kHz). Data from these experiments are used to parametrize an auditory filter model in which the effective bandwidth and the signal-to-noise ratio at threshold for each filter are duration dependent. The duration-dependent filter model is then used to predict the thresholds of synthetic and naturally spoken plosive bursts in background noise. Finally, results from pilot notched-noise experiments are presented which support duration-dependent frequency selectivity.

[1]  J. Hughes.  The threshold of audition for short periods of stimulation , 1946, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B - Biological Sciences.

[2]  W. R. Garner,et al.  The masked threshold of pure tones as a function of duration. , 1947, Journal of experimental psychology.

[3]  S. S. Stevens,et al.  The Masking of Pure Tones and of Speech by White Noise , 1950 .

[4]  G. A. Miller,et al.  An Analysis of Perceptual Confusions Among Some English Consonants , 1955 .

[5]  M. A. Bouman,et al.  Relation between Hearing Threshold and Duration for Tone Pulses , 1959 .

[6]  D. M. Green,et al.  Auditory Detection of a Noise Signal , 1960 .

[7]  Eberhard Zwicker,et al.  Temporal Effects in Simultaneous Masking by White‐Noise Bursts , 1965 .

[8]  H. Levitt.  Transformed up-down methods in psychoacoustics. , 1971, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[9]  B. Moore.  Frequency difference limens for short-duration tones. , 1973, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[10]  D. Raab,et al.  Noise‐intensity discrimination: Effects of bandwidth conditions and mode of masker presentation , 1976 .

[11]  R. Patterson.  Auditory filter shapes derived with noise stimuli. , 1976, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[12]  S. Blumstein,et al.  Perceptual invariance and onset spectra for stop consonants in different vowel environments , 1976 .

[13]  S. Blumstein,et al.  Property detectors for bursts and transitions in speech perception. , 1975, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[14]  Sanford Fidell,et al.  Effective masking bandwidths at low frequencies , 1979 .

[15]  Dennis H. Klatt,et al.  Software for a cascade/parallel formant synthesizer , 1980 .

[16]  E. Zwicker,et al.  Analytical expressions for critical‐band rate and critical bandwidth as a function of frequency , 1980 .

[17]  R. Patterson,et al.  The deterioration of hearing with age: frequency selectivity, the critical ratio, the audiogram, and speech threshold. , 1982, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[18]  T D Carrell,et al.  Onset spectra and formant transitions in the adult's and child's perception of place of articulation in stop consonants. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[19]  B C Moore,et al.  The temporal course of masking and the auditory filter shape. , 1987, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  L. Braida,et al.  Spectral-shape discrimination. I. Results from normal-hearing listeners for stationary broadband noises. , 1987, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[21]  T. Houtgast,et al.  Efficient across-frequency integration in short-signal detection. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[22]  Brian R Glasberg,et al.  Derivation of auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data , 1990, Hearing Research.

[23]  N. Viemeister,et al.  Temporal integration and multiple looks. , 1991, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[24]  D. M. Green,et al.  Discrimination of spectral shape as a function of stimulus duration. , 1993, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[25]  B A Wright,et al.  Detection of unexpected tones with short and long durations. , 1994, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.