This research is directed toward improved speech reception for the hearing impaired. Attempts to advance basic understanding involve study of limitations imposed by characteristics of the speech signal and of the impairment, and the development of a new model of speech intelligibility that exploits ideas used in automatic speech recognition. Research on the speech signal focuses on understanding the effects of environmental disturbances (noise and reverberation), intra-speaker and inter-speaker variability of utterances, and efforts to speak clearly. Research on impairments focuses on developing and testing of techniques for simulating impairments with normals and estimating the speech reception capacity of impaired auditory systems through tests with artificial speech codes. The envisioned model of speech intelligibility includes models of perceptual processing and vector quantization, and makes use of a mutual information metric to predict intelligibility. Attempts to develop improved signal processing techniques for use in hearing aids involve study of adaptive linear filtering, amplitude compression, and frequency lowering. Also considered is an extension of articulation theory to account for speechreading and the use of this extended theory to develop effective supplements to speechreading. Attempts to apply automatic speech recognition to the development of speechreading supplements involves study of manual cued speech and the Autocuer, determination of the extent to which modern speech recognition algorithms can disambiguate speechreading, and study of auditory and visual displays for presenting speechreading supplements based on the output of automatic recognition systems to impaired listeners.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01NS012846-12
Application #
3394999
Study Section
Hearing Research Study Section (HAR)
Project Start
1976-04-01
Project End
1994-06-30
Budget Start
1987-07-01
Budget End
1988-06-30
Support Year
12
Fiscal Year
1987
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02139
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Florentine, M; Reed, C M; Rabinowitz, W M et al. (1993) Intensity perception. XIV. Intensity discrimination in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. J Acoust Soc Am 94:2575-86
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De Gennaro, S; Braida, L D; Durlach, N I (1986) Multichannel syllabic compression for severely impaired listeners. J Rehabil Res Dev 23:17-24
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Picheny, M A; Durlach, N I; Braida, L D (1985) Speaking clearly for the hard of hearing I: Intelligibility differences between clear and conversational speech. J Speech Hear Res 28:96-103