Speech enhancement using sub-band adaptive Griffiths-Jim signal processing

Results are presented from intelligibility tests of a two-microphone sub-band adaptive Griffiths-Jim (SBAGJ) processing scheme that has possible application to future hearing aids as a method of improving speech intelligibility and quality in a noisy reverberant environment. This SBAGJ scheme combines sub-band processing with a Griffiths-Jim "front-end" that delivers a simple system more robust to the "causality" issue inherent with some multi-microphone adaptive noise cancelling configurations' Intelligibility testing is described and results presented of an assessment of the SBAGJ scheme using ten normal hearing listeners and signals from a real reverberant environment. The results support the hypothesis that speech processing using the SBAGJ scheme can provide a statistically and practically significant improvement in speech intelligibility. Analysis of mean opinion score data shows a corresponding statistically significant improvement in subjective quality. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.