• Ms. Madhumati Shridhar Kuntoji
• Dr. Veena Devi S.V.

Sensory neural hearing loss results in loss of frequency selectivity [1]. Less is known about effect of sensory neural hearing loss on level dependence of frequency selectivity which is a prominent feature in normal hearing [1]. Auditory filter shape is nearly linear in hearing impaired whereas it is nonlinear in normal hearing people; hence frequency discrimination capability is poor in hearing impaired listeners, especially in noisy environments. Speech enhancement is utmost important and crucial for hearing impaired. In this paper a simple and computationally efficient speech enhancement algorithm is presented. Most of the speech enhancement algorithms use the magnitude of STFT while keeping the phase as it is [3]. In contrast in this paper the magnitude of STFT of noisy speech is kept as it is while the phase is modified. Modified spectrum of speech is obtained by combining unchanged magnitude spectrum and modified phase spectrum [3]. This modification results into cancellation of low energy components (noise) more, than the high-energy (speech) components during signal reconstruction. This results in reduction of noise, which is essential in hearing aids as a front end operation. Objective speech quality measures, Subjective listening tests on normal hearing and hearing loss subjects and spectrogram analysis of speech samples show that the proposed method gives improved speech quality. In the proposed method, enhancement is achieved by modification of phase angle of DFTs of speech through their imaginary parts. The algorithm is computationally efficient.

Speech Enhancement, Short Time Fourier Transform, Magnitude Spectrum, Phase Spectrum, Phase Compensation

"Speech Signal Enhancement using Signal-Vector Analogy", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 6, page no.a476-a480, June-2022, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2206054.pdf

"Speech Signal Enhancement using Signal-Vector Analogy", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 6, page no. ppa476-a480, June-2022, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2206054.pdf