Andrzej Meyer

The method of the measurement of the time between centre of chosen sounds

In this paper the method and the program to measurement of time distances between middle points of speaking or playing sounds was presented. The proposed algorithm can be used to the score of the human state for persons with dysfunction of the central nervous system. The differences between results obtained for healthy persons an impaired persons was shown.

Chosen Techniques for Processing of Pseudowhisper of the Laryngectomized

In this paper we present novel signal processing techniques for improvement of intelligibility of the so-called pseudowhisper, which is a kind of the residual speech, typical for the rest speaking abilities of a major part of the laryngectomized patients, i.e., of those, who went through the larynx (vocal cords) removal surgery. First of all we show how it is possible to suppress annoying vocal artifacts and other unusual disturbances, which are present in a typical pseudowhisper, such as tongue clicks, plosive sounds (consonants) and the tracheal outlet breath sounds, which typically occur in a pseudowhisper of the laryngectomized. Furthermore, this paper deals with an additional and very effective pseudowhisper postprocessing technique consisting in inserting vowels and other related voiced speech segments into the previously cleaned and denoised pseudowhisper (by means of the presented techniques) in order to make it drastically more comprehensible. Illustrative results of the intelligibility tests carried out by the authors before and after applying the suggested signal processing techniques are presented.