Telecommunication by Speech Visualization for the Hearing Impaired

Abstract

This paper introduces an example of telecommunications for the hearing impaired, which is realized by transmitting speech parameters using a telephone channel and by synthesizing them as a visually integrated pattern in the receiving side.
The realized speech-visualization system and the features in the patterns are briefly described, and then the data format for the transmission by a telephone channel is discussed. The data format is determined on the basis of a transmission rate, a real-time representation and bit-allocations of the speech parameters.
The results show that if about a 100 ms delay time is permitted, it is possible to make the chromaticity change by quantization below the just noticeable difference.
Finally, possibilities for the communication are investigated by word tracking tests. Based on those results, we conclude that a person can understand the patterns well if the speaker talks slowly making pauses.