Monaural intrusive speech intelligibility predictor unit, a hearing aid and a binaural hearing aid system

Abstract

A monaural intrusive speech intelligibility predictor unit comprises: first and second input units for providing time-frequency representations s(k,m) and x(k,m) of noise-free and noisy and/or processed versions of a target signal, respectively, k being a frequency bin index, k=1, 2, . . . , K, and m being a time index; first and second envelope extraction units for providing time-frequency sub-band representations of the signals s(m) and x(m), j being a frequency sub-band index, j=1, 2, . . . , J; first and second time-frequency segment division units for dividing the time-frequency sub-band representations s(m) and x(m) into time-frequency segments Sand Xcorresponding to a number N of successive samples of the sub-band signals; an intermediate speech intelligibility calculation unit adapted for providing intermediate speech intelligibility coefficients destimating an intelligibility of said time-frequency segment X, based on said time-frequency segments Sand Xor normalized and/or transformed versions {tilde over (S)}, and {tilde over (X)}thereof; and a final monaural speech intelligibility calculation unit for calculating a final monaural speech intelligibility predictor d estimating an intelligibility of said noisy and/or processed version x of the target signal by combining said intermediate speech intelligibility coefficients d, or a transformed version thereof, over time. A hearing aid comprises a monaural, intrusive intelligibility predictor unit, and a configurable signal processor adapted to control or influence the processing of one or more electric input signals representing environment sound to maximize the final speech intelligibility predictor d. A binaural hearing aid system comprises first and second hearing aids.