Misplaced Pages

#666333

32-484: The influence that a transmission channel has on speech intelligibility is dependent on: The STI was introduced by Tammo Houtgast and Herman Steeneken in 1971, and was accepted by Acoustical Society of America in 1980. Steeneken and Houtgast decided to develop the Speech Transmission Index because they were tasked to carry out a very lengthy series of tedious speech intelligibility measurements for

64-512: A relatively small international community of speech researchers. The introduction of the RASTI (" R oom A coustics STI") made the STI method available to a larger population of engineers and consultants, especially when Bruel & Kjaer introduced their RASTI measuring device (which was based on the earlier RASTI system developed by Steeneken and Houtgast at TNO). RASTI was designed to be much faster than

96-564: A society of acoustical engineers interested in architectural acoustics. In the early part of December 1928, Wallace Waterfall sent letters to sixteen people inquiring about the possibility of organizing such a society. Harvey Fletcher offered the use of the Bell Telephone Laboratories at 463 West Street in Manhattan as a meeting place for an organizational, initial meeting to be held on December 27, 1928. The meeting

128-458: A variety of other applications. The only situation in which RASTI is currently considered inferior to full STI is in the presence of strong echoes. A single STIPA measurement generally takes between 15 and 25 seconds, combining the speed of RASTI with (nearly) the wide scope of applicability and reliability of full STI. Since STIPA has become widely available, and given the fact that RASTI has several disadvantages and no benefits over STIPA, RASTI

160-489: A wide variety of material related to the knowledge and practical application of acoustics in physics, engineering, architecture, noise, oceanography, biology, speech and hearing, psychology and music. In 2021, the ASA Publications' Office began producing Across Acoustics, a podcast to highlight authors' research from these four publications. The ASA presents awards and prizes to individuals for contributions to

192-495: Is a list of brands under which STI measuring instruments have been sold, in alphabetical order. The market for STI measuring solution is still developing, so the above list is subject to change as manufacturers enter or leave the market. The list does not include software producers that produce STI-capable acoustic measuring and simulation software. Mobile apps for STIPA measurements (such as the ones sold by Studio Six Digital [15] and Embedded Acoustics [16] ) are also excluded from

224-507: Is a numeric representation measure of communication channel characteristics whose value varies from 0 = bad to 1 = excellent. On this scale, an STI of at least .5 is desirable for most applications. Barnett (1995, 1999) proposed to use a reference scale, the C ommon I ntelligibility S cale ( CIS ), based on a mathematical relation with STI (CIS = 1 + log (STI)). STI predicts the likelihood of syllables, words and sentences being comprehended. As an example, for native speakers, this likelihood

256-434: Is a standards-making body in the field of electrical and electronics technologies. The IEC works with National Committees in different countries in preparing and maintaining standards in this space. IEC is one of the oldest standards making bodies in existence. The IEC standards making process, similar to many other standards making processes, is handled by various technical committees (TC) and subcommittees (SC). TCs report to

288-597: Is a version of the STI using a simplified method and test signal. Within the STIPA signal, each octave band is modulated simultaneously with two modulation frequencies. The modulation frequencies are spread among the octave bands in a balanced way, making it possible to obtain a reliable STI measurement based on a sparsely sampled Modulation Transfer Function matrix. Although initially designed for Public Address systems (and similar installations, such as Voice Evacuation Systems and Mass Notification Systems), STIPA can also be used for

320-400: Is given by: If non-native speakers, people with speech disorders or hard-of-hearing people are involved, other probabilities hold. It is interesting but not astonishing that STI prediction is independent of the language spoken – not astonishing, as the ability of the channel to transport patterns of physical speech is measured. Another method is defined for computing a physical measure that

352-434: Is highly correlated with the intelligibility of speech as evaluated by speech perception tests given a group of talkers and listeners. This measure is called the S peech I ntelligibility I ndex, or SII . The IEC 60268-16 ed4 2011 Standard defines a qualification scale in order to provide flexibility for different applications. The values of this alpha-scale run from "U" to "A+". STI has gained international acceptance as

SECTION 10

#1732802126667

384-431: Is now considered obsolete. Although the STIPA test signal does not resemble speech to the human ear, in terms of frequency content as well as intensity fluctuations it is a signal with speech-like characteristics. Speech can be described as noise that is intensity-modulated by low-frequency signals. The STIPA signal contains such intensity modulations at 14 different modulation frequencies, spread across 7 octave bands. At

416-481: Is therefore required of how the impulse response is obtained and potentially influenced by non-linearities in the transmission system, particularly as in practice, system components can be operated at the limits of their performance range." In practice, verification of the validity of the linearity assumption is often too complex for everyday use, making the (direct) STIPA method the preferred method whenever loudspeakers are involved. Although many measuring tools based on

448-552: The Netherlands Armed Forces. Instead, they spent the time developing a much quicker objective method (which was actually the predecessor to the STI). Houtgast and Steeneken developed the Speech Transmission Index while working at The Netherlands Organisation of Applied Scientific Research TNO. Their team at TNO kept supporting and developing the STI, improving the model and developing hardware and software for measuring

480-616: The SMB (Standardization Management Board). Each TC defines its scope (or area of activity) which is submitted to the SMB for approval. Any TC can form one or more SCs depending on the extent of its work programme. SCs define their scope under the parent TC to which they report directly. TC membership is composed of the IEC NCs (National Committees), all of which are free to take part in the work of any given TC. IEC has more than 11 000 technical experts working on standards voluntarily. This list

512-532: The STI to specific populations such as non-natives and the hearing impaired (rev.4). An IEC maintenance team is currently working on rev. 5. RASTI was declared obsolete by the IEC in June 2011, with the appearance of rev. 4 of IEC-602682-16. At this time, this simplified STI derivative was still stipulated as a standard method in some industries. STIPA is now seen as the successor to RASTI for almost every application. STI

544-467: The STI, until 2010. In that year, the TNO research group responsible for the STI spun out of TNO and continued its work as a privately owned company named Embedded Acoustics. Embedded Acoustics now continues to support development of the STI, with Herman Steeneken (now formally retired from TNO) still acting as a senior consultant. In the early years (until approx. 1985) the use of the STI was largely limited to

576-567: The field of Acoustics. These include: Most technical committees also sponsor awards for best student or early career presenter at each conference. The ASA offers membership and conference attendance to students at a substantially reduced rate. Conference attendance is further promoted by travel subsidies and formal and informal student meetings and social activities. The ASA also expanded services to students in 2004 by introducing regional student chapters. List of IEC technical committees The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)

608-525: The indirect method is often the best option when studying speech intelligibility based on "pure room acoustics," when no electro-acoustic components are present within the transmission path. However, the requirement that the channel must be linear implies that the indirect method cannot be used reliably in many real-life applications: whenever the transmission chain features components that might exhibit non-linear behaviour (such as loudspeakers), indirect measurements may yield incorrect results. Also, depending on

640-445: The indirect method offer STIPA as well as "full STI" options, the sparse Modulation Transfer Function matrix inherent to STIPA offers no advantages when using the indirect method. Impulse response based STIPA measurements must not be confused with direct STIPA measurements, as the validity of the result still depends on whether or not the channel is linear. STI measuring instruments are (and have been) made by various manufacturers. Below

672-533: The knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. The Society is primarily a voluntary organization of about 7500 members and attracts the interest, commitment, and service of many professionals. In the summer of 1928, Floyd R. Watson and Wallace Waterfall (1900–1974), a former doctoral student of Watson, were invited by UCLA's Vern Oliver Knudsen to an evening dinner at Knudsen's beach club in Santa Monica . The three physicists decided to form

SECTION 20

#1732802126667

704-526: The list. Jacob, K., McManus, S., Verhave, J.A., and Steeneken, H., (2002) "Development of an Accurate, Handheld, Simple-to-use Meter for the Prediction of Speech Intelligibility", Past, Present, and Future of the Speech Transmission Index, International Symposium on STI Acoustical Society of America The Acoustical Society of America ( ASA ) is an international scientific society founded in 1929 dedicated to generating, disseminating and promoting

736-407: The original ("full") STI, taking less than 30 seconds instead of 15 minutes for a measuring point. However, RASTI was only intended (as the name says) for pure room acoustics, not electro-acoustics. Application of RASTI to transmission chains featuring electro-acoustic components (such as loudspeakers and microphones) became fairly common, and led to complaints about inaccurate results. The use of RASTI

768-556: The quantifier of channel influence on speech intelligibility. The International Electrotechnical Commission Objective rating of speech intelligibility by speech transmission index, as prepared by the TC 100 Technical Committee , defines the international standard. Further the following standards have, as part of the requirements to be fulfilled, integrated testing the STI and realisation of a minimal speech transmission index: STIPA ( S peech T ransmission I ndex for P ublic A ddress Systems)

800-426: The receiving end of the communication system, the depth of modulation of the received signal is measured and compared with that of the test signal in each of a number of frequency bands. Reductions in the modulation depth are associated with loss of intelligibility. An alternative Impulse response method, also known as the "indirect method," assumes that the channel is linear and requires stricter synchronization of

832-438: The sound source to the measurement instrument. The main benefit of the indirect method over the direct method (based on modulated test signals) is that the full MTF matrix is measured, covering all relevant modulation frequencies in all octave bands. In very large spaces (such as cathedrals), where echoes are likely to occur, the indirect method is usually preferred over direct method (e.g. using modulated STIPA signals). In general,

864-433: The type of impulse response measurement that is used, the influence of background noise present during measurements may not be dealt with correctly. This means that the indirect method should only be used with great care when measuring Public Address systems and Voice Evacuation systems. IEC-60268-16 rev. 4 does not disallow the indirect method for such applications, but issues the following words of warning: "Critical analysis

896-502: The year 2000, the need for an alternative to RASTI that could also be applied safely to Public Address (PA) systems had become fully apparent. At TNO, Jan Verhave and Herman Steeneken started work on a new STI method, that would later become known as STIPA ( STI for P ublic A ddress systems). The first device to include STIPA measurements available for sale to the general public was made by Gold-Line. At this time, STIPA measuring instruments are available from various manufacturers. RASTI

928-519: Was attended by forty scientists and engineers who started the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Temporary officers were elected: Harvey Fletcher as president, V. O. Knudsen as vice-president, Wallace Waterfall as secretary, and Charles Fuller Stoddard (1876–1958) as treasurer. A constitution and by-laws were drafted. The first issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

960-520: Was even specified by some application standards (such as CAA specification 15 for aircraft cabin PA systems) for applications featuring electro-acoustics, simply because it was the only feasible method at the time. The inadequacies of RASTI were sometimes simply accepted for lack of a better alternative. TNO did produce and sell instruments for measuring full STI and various other STI derivatives, but these devices were relatively expensive, large and heavy. Around

992-608: Was published in October 1929. The Society has 13 technical committees that represent specialized interests in the field of acoustics. The committees organize technical sessions at conferences and are responsible for the representation of their sub-field in ASA publications. The committees include: The first meeting was attended by forty scientists and engineers who started the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Some of those members include: The Acoustical Society of America publishes

Speech transmission index - Misplaced Pages Continue

1024-491: Was standardized internationally in 1988, in IEC-60268-16. Since then, IEC-60268-16 has been revised three times, the latest revisions (rev.4) appearing in 2011. Each revision included updates of the STI methodology that had become accepted in the STI research community over time, such as the inclusion of redundancy between adjacent octave bands (rev.2), level-dependent auditory masking (rev.3) and various methods for applying

#666333