SII (version 1.0.3.1)

sii: Compute ANSI S3.5-1997 Speech Intelligibility Index (SII)

Description

Compute the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) described by ANSI specification S3.5-1997, including extensions for conductive hearing loss. Optionally apply interpolation obtain values for the required frequencies.

Usage

sii(speech = c("normal", "raised", "loud", "shout"),
    noise, threshold, loss, freq, 
    method = c("critical", "equal-contributing",
               "one-third octave", "octave"),
    importance = c("SII", "NNS", "CID22", "NU6", "DRT",
                   "ShortPassage", "SPIN", "CST"),
    interpolate=FALSE)
# S3 method for SII
print(x, digits=3, ...)
# S3 method for SII
plot(x, ...)
# S3 method for SII
summary(object, digits=2, ...)

Arguments

speech

Either a numeric vector providing \(E'_i\), the equivalent speech spectrum level (in dB) at each frequency, or a character string indicating the stated vocal effort corresponding to one of the standard standard speech spectrum levels ("normal", "raised", "loud", "shout"). Defaults to speech="normal" correspoding to the normal level of stated vocal effort.

noise

A numeric vector providing \(N'_i\), the equivalent noise spectrum level (in dB) at each frequency. If missing, defaults to -50 dB for each frequency.

threshold

A numeric vector providing \(T'_i\), the equivalent hearing threshold level (in dB) at each frequency. If missing, defaults to 0 dB for each frequency.

loss

A numeric vector providing \(J'_i\), the conductive hearing loss level (in dB) at each frequency. If missing, defaults to 0 dB for each frequency.

freq

Vector of frequencies for which speech, noise, threshold, and/or loss are specified. If interpolate=TRUE, freq must be specified. Otherwise, it must either match the required value for SII calculation method given by argument method, or be missing, in which case it will default to the values required for the specified method.

method

A character string specifying the SII calculation method ("critical", "one-third octave", "equal-contributing", "octave")

importance

Either a numeric vector providing \(F_i\), the transfer function (importance weights) at each frequency, or a character string indicating which transfer function to employ ("SII", "NNS", "CID22", "NU6", "DRT", "ShortPassage", "SPIN", "CST"). Defaults to the standard SII transfer function, importance="SII".

interpolate

Logical flag indicating whether to interpolate from the provide measurement values and frequencies to those required by the specified method via linear interpolation on the log scale.

object,x

SII object

digits

Number of digits to display

...

Optional arguments to print, summary, and plot methods

Value

The return value is an object of class SII, containing the following components:

call

Function call used to generate the SII object

orig

List containing original (pre-extrapolation) values for freq, speech, noise, threshold, and loss.

speech, noise, threshold, loss, and freq

Values used in calculations (extrapolated if necessary)

table

SII calculation worksheet, containing columns corresponding to both Table C.1 and C.2 in Annex C of the standard. Table columns are

Fi

Center frequency of SII band, Hz

E'i

Spectrum level of equivalent speech, dB

N'i

Spectrum level of equivalent noise, dB

T'i

Equivalent hearing threshold level, dB

Vi

Spectrum level for self-speech masking, dB

Bi

Larger of the specrum levels for equivalent noise and self-speech masking, dB

Ci

Slope per octave (doubling of frequency) of the upward spread of masking, dB/octave

Zi

Spectrum level for equivalent masking, dB

Xi

Spectrum level of internal noise, dB

X'i

Spectrum level of equivalent internal noise, dB

Di

Spectrum level for equivalent disturbance, dB

Ui

Spectrum level of standard speech for normal vocal effort, dB

Ji

Equivalent hearing threshold due to conductive hearing loss, dB

Li

Speech level distortion factor, dB

Ki

Temporary variable used in the calculation of the band auditability function

Ai

Band auditability function

Ii

Band importance function

IiAi

Product of the band importance function (Ii), and band auditability function(Ai)

sii

Calculated SII value

Details

American National Standard ANSI S3.5-1997 ("Methods for Calculation of the Speech Intelligibility Index") defines a method for computing a physical measure that 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 Speech Intelligibility Index, or SII. The SII is calculated from acoustical measurements of speech and noise.

The sii function implements ANSI S3.5-1997 as described in the standard, without any attempt to optimize the performance. The implementation does, however, include the extension for handling conductive hearing loss from Annex A (utilizing the optional loss argument), and for utilizing alternative band weights (i.e. transfer function) appropriate for differing message contents (e.g. types of speech) as described in Annex B or user-specified band weights (utilizing the optional argument importance).

Further, this implementation provides a mechanism for interpolating/extrapolating available measurements to those required for the specified calculation procedure. When interpolate=TRUE, required values for speech, noise, threshold, and loss will be computed using linear interpolation (of the log-scaled data). In this case, missing values may be provided and will be appropriately interpolated.

References

ANSI S3.5-1997, "American National Standard Methods for Calculation of the Speech Intelligibility Index" American National Standards Institute, New York.

Other software programs for calculating SII are available from http://www.sii.to/html/programs.html.

See Also

SII Constants: critical, and sic.critical

Examples

# NOT RUN {
## Example C.1 from ANSI S3.5-1997 Annex C
sii.C1 <- sii(
              speech   = c(50.0, 40.0, 40.0, 30.0, 20.0,  0.0),
              noise    = c(70.0, 65.0, 45.0, 25.0,  1.0,-15.0),
              threshold= c( 0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0,  0.0),
              method="octave"
	      )
sii.C1                        # rounded to 2 digits by default
print(sii.C1$sii, digits=20)  # full precision
summary(sii.C1)               # full details
plot(sii.C1)                  # plot
## The value given in the Standard is $0.504$.


	      
## Same calculation, but manually specify the frequencies
## and importance function, and use default for threshold

sii.C1 <- sii(
              speech   = c(50.0, 40.0, 40.0, 30.0, 20.0,  0.0),
              noise    = c(70.0, 65.0, 45.0, 25.0,  1.0,-15.0),
              method="octave",
              freq=c(250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000),
	      importance=c(0.0617, 0.1671, 0.2373, 0.2648, 0.2142, 0.0549)
	      )
sii.C1	     

## Now perform the calculation using frequency weights for the Connected
## Speech Test (CST)
sii.CST <- sii(
               speech   = c(50.0, 40.0, 40.0, 30.0, 20.0,  0.0),
               noise    = c(70.0, 65.0, 45.0, 25.0,  1.0,-15.0),
               method="octave",
	       importance="CST"
	      )
round(sii.CST$table[,-c(5:7,13)],2)
sii.CST$sii

## Example C.2 from ANSI S3.5-1997 Annex C

sii.C2 <- sii(
              speech   = rep(54.0, 18),
              noise    = c(40.0, 30.0, 20.0, rep(0, 18-3) ),
              threshold= rep(0.0,  18),
              method="one-third"
              )
sii.C2$table[1:3,1:8]
sii.C2

## Interpolation example, for 8 frequencies using NU6 importance
## weight, default values for noise.
sii.left <- sii(
                speech="raised",
                threshold=c(25,25,30,35,45,45,55,60),
                freq=c(250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 6000, 8000),
                method="critical",
                importance="NU6",
                interpolate=TRUE
                )
sii.left


# }