Publikation
Perceptual references for independent dimensions of speech quality as measured by electroencephalography
Stefan Uhrig; Sebastian Arndt; Sebastian Möller; Jan-Niklas Voigt-Antons
In: Quality and User Experience, Vol. 2, No. 1, Page 10, Springer Nature, Heidelberg, Germany, 9/2017.
Zusammenfassung
Quality of transmitted speech can be decomposed into three perceptual dimensions: Noisiness, coloration and discontinuity (Wältermann, Dimension-based quality modeling of transmitted speech. Springer, Berlin. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-35019-1, 2013). The purpose of the present study was to explore whether degradation of speech quality on each perceptual dimension affected the morphological and temporal characteristics of the P300 event-related brain potential (ERP) component. The P300 is composed of two subcomponents, P3a and P3b, which served as neurophysiological indicators of distinct processes in human quality perception (Polich, Neuropsychology of P300. Oxford University Press, Oxford. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195374148.013.0089, 2012; Raake and Egger, Quality and quality of experience. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 11--33, 2014): While the earlier P3a reflects attentional processing after the occurrence of novel sensory events, the later P3b is associated with memory operations following the detection of task-relevant stimuli. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record the electrical brain activity of subjects ($$N = 24$$N=24) performing a three-stimulus oddball task. Degraded stimuli were generated from the audio recording of a spoken word. The analysis of P3a- and P3b-related activity at electrode positions Fz, Cz and Pz provided support for the existence of different perceptual references for quality-impaired vs. high-quality stimulus contexts as well as quality degradations on single perceptual dimensions.