Prediction of binaural speech intelligibility against noise in rooms

In the presence of competing speech or noise, reverberation degrades speech intelligibility not only by its direct effect on the target but also by affecting the interferer. Two experiments were designed to validate a method for predicting the loss of intelligibility associated with this latter effect. Speech reception thresholds were measured under headphones, using spatially separated target sentences and speech-shaped noise interferers simulated in virtual rooms. To investigate the effect of reverberation on the interferer unambiguously, the target was always anechoic. The interferer was placed in rooms with different sizes and absorptions, and at different distances and azimuths from the listener. The interaural coherence of the interferer did not fully predict the effect of reverberation. The azimuth separation of the sources and the coloration introduced by the room also had to be taken into account. The binaural effects were modeled by computing the binaural masking level differences in the studied configurations, the monaural effects were predicted from the excitation pattern of the noises, and speech intelligibility index weightings were applied to both. These parameters were all calculated from the room impulse responses convolved with noise. A 0.95–0.97 correlation was obtained between the speech reception thresholds and their predicted value.