Volume 38 #2

Contents

1. The characteristic features of the auditory neurons responses in terrestrial vertebrates to species-specific communication calls (analytical review)
2. Clinical physiology of the central parts of the visual system
3. Insect ocelli: ecology, physiology, and morphology of the accessory visual system
4. Identification of speaker gender by voice characteristics under background of multi-talker noise
5. Recognition of projectively transformed planar figures. XVII. Using plucker’s reciprocity theorem to describe ovals with an external fixed point

Psychophysical methods were used to study the features of identifying the gender of a speaker based on voice characteristics under conditions of speech-like interference and stimulation through headphones. We used a set of speech signals and multi-talker noise from experiments in a free sound field – a spatial scene (Andreeva et al., 2019). The set included 8 disyllabic words spoken by 4 speakers: 2 male and 2 female voices with average fundamental frequencies of 117, 139, 208 and 234 Hz. Multi-talker noise represented the result of mixing all audio files (8 words * 4 speakers). The signal-to-noise ratio was 1:1, which subjectively corresponded to the maximum noise level in the spatial scene (SNR = –14 dB). Adult subjects from 17 to 57 years old (n = 42) participated in the experiments. Additionally, 3 age subgroups were identified: 18.6±1.5 years (n = 27); 28±4.1 years (n = 7); 46±5.4 years (n = 8). All subjects had normal hearing. The results of the study and their comparison with the data of mentioned work confirmed the importance of voice characteristics for the auditory analysis of complex spatial (free sound field) and non-spatial (headphones) scenes, and also demonstrated the role of mechanisms of the masking and binaural perception, in particular, the high-frequency mechanism of spatial hearing. A relation the perceptual assessment of the gender by voice in noise and the age of the subjects and the gender of the speakers (male/female voice) was also found. The results are of practical importance for the organization of hearing-speech training, early detection of speech hearing interference immunity impairment, as well as the development of noise-resistant systems for automatic speaker verification and hearing aid technologies.

Key words: perception, voice, gender feature, imitation of a complex scene, noise, polyphony, spatial acoustic scene

DOI: 10.31857/S0235009224020041  EDN: DDOTRT

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