Google Research Award Funds Brain Inspired Speech Enhancer

Even today, the devices to improve hearing ability of an impaired person are not as developed as they should be. However a research team from Universities of Southampton and Cambridge is already eyeing to achieve a breakthrough in developing a brain-inspired speech enhancer. For engineering this, the team is working to understand how brain codes the sound. Interesting, isn't it? This is much similar to the current computer devices which analyze and synthesize sound.


Image Credit: Global Hearing Services

While processing speech, the research team has to tackle the ordinary sound and noise. This is also necessary because, many times in a noisy situation, one has to concentrate very hard to pick up the precise sound form nearby noise. In other words, any gadget which the team wishes to develop will have to deal with wanted and unwanted signals. Once the signals are obtained, the system has to be intelligent enough to make distinctions between the two. Today's speech enhancers depend on strength of speech signal. However this limits the real effect of how brain might have worked. Simply stating, the natural speech enhancers are quite superior to man-made ones.

To remove this anomaly, Southampton and Cambridge team is trying to develop an algorithm based on the neuronal responses. By designing this algorithm, the team will be able to identify the parts of brain which process the noise. This identification will make it feasible for the scientists to reduce levels of noise keeping it of high quality all the way! The basic aim of the project is to boost crafting of speech intelligibility.

One of the researchers associated with this project Dr. Stefan Bleeck, from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton believes that such a brain inspired speech enhancer can be made a reality in next five years. This positive step is funded by Google Research Award. Dr. Bleeck is helped in this research by Dr Matthew Wright also from ISVR and Dr Ian Winter of the University of Cambridge's Department of Physiology.