Speech Enhancement Using Bayesian Estimators of the Perceptually-Motivated Short-Time Spectral Amplitude (STSA) with Chi Speech Priors

Authors

Marek B. Trawicki, Marquette UniversityFollow
Michael T. Johnson, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

13 p.

Publication Date

2-2014

Publisher

Elsevier

Source Publication

Speech Communication

Source ISSN

0167-6393

Original Item ID

doi: 10.1016/j.specom.2013.09.009

Abstract

In this paper, the authors propose new perceptually-motivated Weighted Euclidean (WE) and Weighted Cosh (WCOSH) estimators that utilize more appropriate Chi statistical models for the speech prior with Gaussian statistical models for the noise likelihood. Whereas the perceptually-motivated WE and WCOSH cost functions emphasized spectral valleys rather than spectral peaks (formants) and indirectly accounted for auditory masking effects, the incorporation of the Chi distribution statistical models demonstrated distinct improvement over the Rayleigh statistical models for the speech prior. The estimators incorporate both weighting law and shape parameters on the cost functions and distributions. Performance is evaluated in terms of the Segmental Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SSNR), Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ), and Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) Loss objective quality measures to determine the amount of noise reduction along with overall speech quality and speech intelligibility improvement. Based on experimental results across three different input SNRs and eight unique noises along with various weighting law and shape parameters, the two general, less-complicated, closed-form derived solution estimators of WE and WCOSH with Chi speech priors provide significant gains in noise reduction and noticeable gains in overall speech quality and speech intelligibility improvements over the baseline WE and WCOSH with the standard Rayleigh speech priors. Overall, the goal of the work is to capitalize on the mutual benefits of the WE and WCOSH cost functions and Chi distributions for the speech prior to improvement enhancement.

Comments

Accepted version. Speech Communication, Vol. 57 (February 2014): 101-113. DOI. © 2014 Elsevier. Used with permission.

Recommended Citation

Trawicki, Marek B. and Johnson, Michael T., "Speech Enhancement Using Bayesian Estimators of the Perceptually-Motivated Short-Time Spectral Amplitude (STSA) with Chi Speech Priors" (2014). Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications. 49.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/electric_fac/49