Experimental Study of the Influence of Occupants on Speech Intelligibility in an Automotive Cabin
Source abstract
Abstract
Adding occupants to an enclosed space often leads to perceptible changes in the sound field and, therefore, speech intelligibility; however, this issue has not yet been examined in automotive cabins. This study investigated the effect of occupants in an automotive cabin on SI. Binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) were measured in an automotive cabin with an artificial mouth and dummy head under different speaker–listener position configurations and occupancy modes. Based on the measured BRIRs, the speech transmission index (STI) was determined, and subjective speech–reception thresholds (SRTs) in Mandarin Chinese were assessed. The results indicate that speech intelligibility mostly decreased slightly after adding additional occupants. In most cases, the occupants did not significantly affect speech intelligibility, with STI variations of no more than the just-noticeable difference and SRT variation within 1 dB. When the listener was in the back-right seat, the effect of the occupants on speech intelligibility could not be ignored, with STI variations of up to 0.07 and an SRT variation of 2 dB under different occupancy modes. In addition, the influence of front-row passengers on the speech intelligibility of rear-row listeners was extremely small, and vice versa. Furthermore, altering the distribution of occupants had an effect comparable to changing the number of occupants.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Noise Effects and Management · Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation · Speech and Audio Processing
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Headmaster’s Office, Guangxi Vocational University of Agriculture, Nanning 530004, China
Funding
Middle-aged and Young Teachers’ Basic Ability Promotion Project of Guangxi
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