Biomaterial Database

The masking property of the auditory system: the masking of speech signals. 1995

J J Hanekom

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering University of Pretoria.

The masking property of the auditory system is well known in the context of two-tone masking. For complex (speech) signals, the effects of masking are less well known. This paper explores the masking of speech signals, by calculating which parts of the speech signal is inaudible because of masking. The theory for the masking of one tone by another is expanded, to establish an equation for the masking threshold. This masking threshold takes into account the masking of each frequency component on all other frequency components. Speech is then synthesized in which the supposedly inaudible parts of the speech signal are discarded, and the effects are evaluated in a very simple psychoacoustic experiment. It is shown that the information below the masking threshold is indeed redundant.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008433	Mathematics	The deductive study of shape, quantity, and dependence. (From McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th ed)	Mathematic
D010470	Perceptual Masking	The interference of one perceptual stimulus with another causing a decrease or lessening in perceptual effectiveness.	Masking, Perceptual,Maskings, Perceptual,Perceptual Maskings
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D001307	Auditory Perception	The process whereby auditory stimuli are selected, organized, and interpreted by the organism.	Auditory Processing,Perception, Auditory,Processing, Auditory
D013018	Sound Spectrography	The graphic registration of the frequency and intensity of sounds, such as speech, infant crying, and animal vocalizations.	Sonography, Speech,Sonography, Sound,Speech Sonography,Sonographies, Sound,Sound Sonographies,Sound Sonography,Spectrography, Sound
D013060	Speech	Communication through a system of conventional vocal symbols.	Public Speaking,Speaking, Public
D013061	Speech Acoustics	The acoustic aspects of speech in terms of frequency, intensity, and time.	Acoustics, Speech,Acoustic, Speech,Speech Acoustic

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