Spectral shaping for speech intelligibility enhancement

摘要

A speech intelligibility enhancement (SIE) system and method is described that improves the intelligibility of a speech signal to be played back by an audio device when the audio device is located in an environment with loud acoustic background noise. In an embodiment, the audio device comprises a near-end telephony terminal and the speech signal comprises a speech signal received over a communication network from a far-end telephony terminal for playback at the near-end telephony terminal.

主权项

1. A method for processing a speech signal to produce an output speech signal to be played back by an audio device, comprising:
determining a degree of compression that was applied to a first portion of the speech signal to produce a first portion of the output speech signal; receiving a second portion of the speech signal; adaptively determining a degree of spectral shaping to be applied to the second portion of the speech signal to increase the intelligibility thereof as a function of at least the degree of compression that was applied to the first portion of the speech signal, wherein the spectral shaping comprises amplifying at least one selected formant associated with the second portion of the speech signal relative to at least one other formant associated with the second portion of the speech signal and wherein the degree of spectral shaping to be applied to the second portion of the speech signal is increased in response to an increase in the degree of compression applied to the first portion of the speech signal; and applying the determined degree of spectral shaping to the second portion of the speech signal to produce a second portion of the output speech signal; wherein at least one of the determining, receiving, adaptively determining, or applying steps is performed by a processing unit or an integrated circuit.