Sparsity Level in a Non-negative Matrix Factorization Based Speech Strategy in Cochlear Implants

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) has increasinglybeen used as a tool in signal processing in the last years, butit has not been used in the cochlear implants (CIs). Toimprove the performance of CIs in noisy environments, anovel sparse strategy is proposed by applying NMF onenvelops of 22 channels. In the new algorithm, the noisyspeech is first transferred to the time-frequency domain viaa 22- channel filter bank and the envelope in each frequencychannel is extracted; secondly, NMF is applied to theenvelope matrix (envelopegram); finally, the sparsitycondition is applied to the coefficient matrix to get moresparse representation. Speech reception threshold (SRT)subjective experiment was performed in combination withfive objective measurements in order to choose the properparameters for the sparse NMF model. QC 20121120