Davis Timothy J, Grantham D Wesley, Gifford René H
Vanderbilt University, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Nashville, TN, USA.
Vanderbilt University, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Nashville, TN, USA.
Hear Res. 2016 Jul;337:80-8. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2016.05.011. Epub 2016 May 27.
The benefit of spatial separation for talkers in a multi-talker environment is well documented. However, few studies have examined the effect of talker motion on speech recognition. In the current study, we evaluated the effects of (1) motion of the target or distracters, (2) a priori information about the target and distracter spatial configurations, and (3) target and distracter location. In total, seventeen young adults with normal hearing were tested in a large anechoic chamber in two experiments. In Experiment 1, seven stimulus conditions were tested using the Coordinate Response Measure (Bolia et al., 2000) speech corpus, in which subjects were required to report the key words in a target sentence presented simultaneously with two distracter sentences. As in previous studies, there was a significant improvement in key word identification for conditions in which the target and distracters were spatially separated as compared to the co-located conditions. In addition, 1) motion of either talker or distracter resulted in improved performance compared to stationary presentation (talker motion yielded significantly better performance than distracter motion) 2) a priori information regarding stimulus configuration was not beneficial, and 3) performance was significantly better with key words at 0° azimuth as compared to -60° (on the listener's left). Experiment 2 included two additional conditions designed to assess whether the benefit of motion observed in Experiment 1 was due to the motion itself or to the fact that the motion conditions introduced small spatial separations in the target and distracter key words. Results showed that small spatial separations (on the order of 5-8°) resulted in improved performance (relative to co-located key words) whether the sentences were moving or stationary. These results suggest that in the presence of distracting messages, motion of either target or distracters and/or small spatial separation of the key words may be beneficial for sound source segregation and thus for improved speech recognition.
在多说话者环境中，说话者空间分离的益处已有充分记录。然而，很少有研究考察说话者运动对语音识别的影响。在本研究中，我们评估了以下因素的影响：（1）目标或干扰项的运动；（2）关于目标和干扰项空间配置的先验信息；（3）目标和干扰项的位置。共有17名听力正常的年轻成年人在一个大型消声室中进行了两个实验。在实验1中，使用坐标反应测量法（Bolia等人，2000）语音语料库测试了七种刺激条件，其中要求受试者报告与两个干扰句同时呈现的目标句中的关键词。与之前的研究一样，与目标和干扰项共定位的条件相比，目标和干扰项在空间上分离的条件下，关键词识别有显著改善。此外，1）与静止呈现相比，说话者或干扰项的运动均导致表现改善（说话者运动产生的表现显著优于干扰项运动）；2）关于刺激配置的先验信息并无益处；3）与-60°（在听众左侧）相比，关键词在0°方位时的表现显著更好。实验2包括另外两个条件，旨在评估在实验1中观察到的运动益处是由于运动本身还是由于运动条件在目标和干扰项关键词中引入了小的空间分离。结果表明，无论句子是移动还是静止，小的空间分离（约5-8°）都会导致表现改善（相对于共定位的关键词）。这些结果表明，在存在干扰信息的情况下，目标或干扰项的运动和/或关键词的小空间分离可能有利于声源分离，从而改善语音识别。
