Abstract
As a technology that allows sound to be heard only in specific areas in public spaces, the directional sound of parametric speakers has been attracting attention. The parametric speaker is also expected to have a wide range of uses, in settings ranging from shopping malls to museums for presenting information sound. The purpose of this study is to measure evaluate the Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) of parametric speakers and compare with that of loudspeakers at various noise levels through experiments. It can also reveal how much the parametric speaker can reduce the noise heard by non-target users, which is unavoidable with loudspeakers.
Through experiments, the volume required to transmit an informative sound to a particular listener is about 12.61 dBA less than the level necessary for the loudspeaker. Moreover, the SRT of the surrounding people is about 2.48 dBA higher than that for the loudspeaker. Based on the results, the volume received by people in the surrounding area, including environmental noise, was calculated, and the effect of noise reduction is discussed. This study provides important insights for the flexibility in the design of the sound space.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amano, S.: Effects of lexicon and coarticulation on phoneme perception. J. Acoust. Soc. Jpn. (E) 14(2), 91–97 (1993)
Amano, S., Kondo, T.: Estimation of mental lexicon size with word familiarity database (1998)
Amano, S., Kondo, T., Kato, K.: Familiarity effect on spoken word recognition in japanese. In: Proceedings of the 14th ICPhS. vol. 2, pp. 873–876 (1999)
Aoki, K., Kamakura, T., Kumamoto, Y.: Parametric loudspeaker–characteristics of acoustic field and suitable modulation of carrier ultrasound. Electr. Commun. Jpn (Part III: Fund. Electr. Sci.) 74(9), 76–82 (1991)
Aoki, S., Toba, M., Tsujita, N.: Sound localization of stereo reproduction with parametric loudspeakers. Appl. Acoust. 73(12), 1289–1295 (2012)
Hong, J.Y., et al..: Effects of adding natural sounds to urban noises on the perceived loudness of noise and soundscape quality. Sci. Total Environ. 711, 134571 (2020)
Jo, H.I., Jeon, J.Y.: Effect of the appropriateness of sound environment on urban soundscape assessment. Build. Environ. 179, 106975 (2020)
Kobayashi, Y., Kondo, K.: Japanese speech intelligibility estimation and prediction using objective intelligibility indices under noisy and reverberant conditions. Appl. Acoust. 156, 327–335 (2019)
Kuratomo, N., Yamada, K., Masuko, S., Yamanaka, T., Zempo, K.: Effect of attention adaptive personal audio deliverable system on digital signage. In: SIGGRAPHAsia 2019 Technical Briefs, pp. 118–121(2019)
Sakamoto, S., Yoshikawa, T., Amano, S., Suzuki, Y., Kondo, T.: New 20-word lists for word intelligibility test in Japanese. In: Ninth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (2006)
Scharenborg, O., Coumans, J.M., van Hout, R.: The effect of background noise on the word activation process in nonnative spoken-word recognition. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 44(2), 233 (2018)
Scharenborg, O., van Os, M.: Why listening in background noise is harder in a non-native language than in a native language: a review. Speech Commun. 108, 53–64 (2019)
Shimizu, T., Makishima, K., Yoshida, M., Yamagishi, H.: Effect of background noise on perception of English speech for Japanese listeners. Auris Nasus Larynx 29(2), 121–125 (2002)
Skoda, S., Steffens, J., Becker-Schweitzer, J.: Road traffic noise annoyance in domestic environments can be reduced by water sounds. In: Forum Acusticum (2014)
Van Renterghem, et al..: Interactive soundscape augmentation by natural sounds in a noise polluted urban park. Landsc. Urban Plan. 194, 103705 (2020)
Yamamoto, K., Irino, T., Araki, S., Kinoshita, K., Nakatani, T.: Gedi: Gammachirp envelope distortion index for predicting intelligibility of enhanced speech. Speech Commun. 123, 43–58 (2020)
Yang, W., Kang, J.: Soundscape and sound preferences in urban squares: a case study in Sheffield. J. Urban Des. 10(1), 61–80 (2005)
Yang, W., Moon, H.J.: Effects of indoor water sounds on intrusive noise perception and speech recognition in rooms. Build. Serv. Eng. Res. Technol. 39(6), 637–651 (2018)
Yang, W., Moon, H.J.: Combined effects of acoustic, thermal, and illumination conditions on the comfort of discrete senses and overall indoor environment. Build. Environ. 148, 623–633 (2019)
Yoneyama, M., Fujimoto, J.i., Kawamo, Y., Sasabe, S.: The audio spotlight: An application of nonlinear interaction of sound waves to a new type of loudspeaker design. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 73(5), 1532–1536 (1983)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kuratomo, N., Ebihara, T., Wakatsuki, N., Mizutani, K., Zempo, K. (2021). How Much is the Noise Level be Reduced? – Speech Recognition Threshold in Noise Environments Using a Parametric Speaker –. In: Ardito, C., et al. Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021. INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12933. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85616-8_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85616-8_31
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-85615-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-85616-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)