Patent application number | Description | Published |
20120072213 | SPEECH SOUND INTELLIGIBILITY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM, AND METHOD AND PROGRAM THEREFOR - The speech sound intelligibility assessment system includes: an output section for presenting a speech sound to a user; a biological signal measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal of the user; a positive component determination section for determining presence/absence of a positive component of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal in a zone from 600 ms to 800 ms from a starting point, which is a point in time at which the output section presents a speech sound; a negative component determination section for determining presence/absence of a negative component of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal in a zone from 100 ms to 300 ms from the same starting point; and an assessment section for evaluating whether the user has clearly aurally comprehended the presented speech sound or not based on the results of determination of presence/absence of the positive and negative components, respectively. | 03-22-2012 |
20120172744 | ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM MEASUREMENT APPARATUS, METHOD OF ESTIMATING ELECTRICAL NOISE, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR EXECUTING METHOD OF ESTIMATING ELECTRICAL NOISE - An electroencephalogram measurement apparatus includes: an electroencephalogram measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram of a user by using a plurality of electrodes; an electro-acoustic transducer for presenting an acoustic signal to the user, the electro-acoustic transducer being in a vicinity of at least one electrode among the plurality of electrodes while the electroencephalogram measurement section is worn by the user; an amplitude envelope extraction section for extracting an amplitude envelope of the acoustic signal presented by the electro-acoustic transducer; a frequency analysis section for applying a frequency analysis to the amplitude envelope extracted by the amplitude envelope extraction section; and a noise estimation section for estimating an electrical noise which is mixed at the at least one electrode by using a previously provided set of transform rules and the extracted amplitude envelope. | 07-05-2012 |
20120191000 | ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM MEASUREMENT SYSTEM, ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM MEASUREMENT METHOD, AND PROGRAM THEREOF - An exemplary electroencephalogram measurement system includes: a frequency analysis section for, analyzing a frequency power of the electroencephalogram signal of a user with respect to each set of a reference electrode and a measurement electrode; an insufficient electrode determination section for, through comparison of the analyzed frequency power against a first threshold value, distinguishing whether a state of attachment of each electrode is sufficient or not; and an insufficiency cause estimation section for determining the number of insufficient electrodes distinguished as insufficiently worn, determining a position at which each insufficient electrode is in contact with the user, and estimating a cause for the insufficient state of attachment of the insufficient electrode or electrodes that corresponds to the determined number of insufficient electrodes and position of each insufficient electrode by referring to insufficiency pattern data. | 07-26-2012 |
20120288108 | ASSESSMENT SYSTEM OF SPEECH SOUND LISTENING, AND METHOD AND PROGRAM THEREOF - In an exemplary assessment system of speech sound listening, an output section presents a speech sound to a user as an auditory stimulation; a positive component determination section determines whether a positive component appears in an event-related potential of an electroencephalogram signal of the user in a range from 600-900 ms from a starting point, the starting point being a point in time at which the speech sound is presented, and outputs an assessment result as to whether the user is listening to the speech sound with strife or not; and a negative component determination section determines whether a negative component appears in the event-related potential in a range from 100-300 ms from a starting point, the starting point being the point in time at which the speech sound is presented, and outputs an assessment result as to whether the user is annoyed by the speech sound or not. | 11-15-2012 |
20120294451 | HEARING DETERMINATION SYSTEM, AND METHOD AND PROGRAM FOR THE SAME - The determination system includes a presented-speech sound control section for determining a speech sound to be presented to a user; auditory/visual stimulation presentation sections for presenting the determined speech sound as an audio/a character; a group-wise summation section for taking a summation of an event-related potential of an electroencephalogram signal of the user for each group of speech sounds; a first determination section for, from the event-related potential having been subjected to summation for each group, making a group-by-group determination of comfortableness as to whether the user is comfortably hearing to the speech sound, to at least determine whether the user is listening to the speech sound with strife, or to determine whether the user is annoyed by the speech sound; and a second determination section for, from the event-related potential, making a speech sound-by-speech sound determination of intelligibility as to whether the user is clearly hearing the speech sound. | 11-22-2012 |
20130039498 | ANNOYANCE JUDGMENT SYSTEM, APPARATUS, METHOD, AND PROGRAM - An annoyance judgment system includes: a biological signal measurement section configured to measure an electroencephalogram signal of a user; a database retaining a plurality of monosyllabic speech sounds such that, for each speech sound, the speech sound and a reference latency of an electroencephalogram negative component corresponding to the speech sound are retained in association; a presented-speech sound determination section configured to deteremine a monosyllabic speech sound to be presented by referring to the database; and an annoyance judgment section configured to judge annoyance of the output speech sound by comparing a peak latency of a negative component of the electroencephalogram signal in a range from 50 ms to 350 ms from a starting point, the a starting point being a point in time at which the determined speech sound is presented, against the reference latency corresponding to the determined speech sound that is retained in the database. | 02-14-2013 |
20130070929 | SOUND PRESSURE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM, AND METHOD AND PROGRAM THEREOF - A sound pressure assessment system determines sounds to be presented by referring to a database retaining data of sounds, each of which is a pure tone. The system presents the determined sound as a first sound, and in a predetermined time after presenting the first sound, presents as a second sound a sound at least having the same frequency and the same sound pressure level as those of the'first sound to the user. The system extracts an amount of change from an N1 component in response to the first sound to that in response to the second sound. The N1 components are negative components of an user's event-related potential based on points of presenting the first and second sounds as respective starting points. The system determines whether the sound pressure level of the presented sound is excessive to the user, based on the amount of change. | 03-21-2013 |
20130138012 | ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM RECORDING APPARATUS, HEARING AID, ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM RECORDING METHOD, AND PROGRAM THEREOF - In an electroencephalogram recording apparatus: a classification section classifies a collected sound into one of categories concerning sound pressure; an accumulation determination section determines whether or not to record an electroencephalogram of a user based on whether a number of times of data accumulation has reached a target value for the category into which the sound is classified; and an accumulation section accumulates an electroencephalogram data and a sound data in association if the electroencephalogram data is determined to be recorded. A first value is designated as a target value for a first category into which sounds of an expected minimum value are classified. A second value is designated as a target value for a second category into which any sound having a sound pressure greater than the minimum value is classified. The accumulation determination section sets the first value to be equal to or greater than the second value. | 05-30-2013 |
20130182860 | UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE DETERMINATION SYSTEM, METHOD AND PROGRAM THEREOF, HEARING AID ADJUSTMENT SYSTEM, AND UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE DETERMINATION APPARATUS - An exemplary uncomfortable sound pressure determination system including: a sound data generator configured to generate sound data concerning sounds consecutively ascending or descending in sound pressure from first to n | 07-18-2013 |
20130266163 | UNCOMFORTABLENESS THRESHOLD VALUE ESTIMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD, AND A PROGRAM THEREOF; HEARING AID ADJUSTMENT SYSTEM; AND UNCOMFORTABLENESS THRESHOLD VALUE PROCESSING CIRCUIT - An exemplary UCL estimation system including: an output section configured to present to a user a first sound, and a second sound after lapse of a first predetermined time from a point of presenting the first sound, the first sound having a sound pressure within a predetermined sound pressure range, and the second sound having a same sound pressure as that of the first sound; a measurement section configured to measure an electroencephalogram signal of the user; an extraction section configured to extract, from an electroencephalogram signal measured within a second predetermined time from a point of presenting the second sound, a characteristic amount of an event-related potential of the signal; and an estimation section configured to estimate, by referring to a predetermined relationship between characteristic amount values of event-related potential and uncomfortableness threshold values, an uncomfortableness threshold value corresponding to the extracted characteristic amount of the potential. | 10-10-2013 |
20130296732 | AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT SYSTEM, AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM THEREOF - An auditory event-related potential measurement system includes: a video output section configured to present a video to a user; a measurement section configured to measure a user's electroencephalogram signal; a scheduling section configured to schedule a timing of presenting an auditory stimulation so that the auditory stimulation is presented during a period in which the video is being presented to the user; an auditory stimulation output section configured to present the auditory stimulation to the user at the scheduled timing; and a processing section configured to acquire, from the electroencephalogram signal, an event-related potential in a first time range as reckoned from a point in time at which the auditory stimulation is presented. When an amount of video luminance change exceeds a threshold value, the auditory stimulation is not presented during a second time range as reckoned from a point in time at which the threshold value is exceeded. | 11-07-2013 |
20130324880 | AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT SYSTEM, AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT APPARATUS, AUDITORY EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM THEREOF - The auditory event-related potential measurement system includes: a size determination section for determining a size of a region within a video to be presented to a user so that the region has a viewing angle between diagonal corners in a range greater than 2 degrees and smaller than 14 degrees; a video output section for presenting to the user a video including a region of the size determined by the size determination section; an auditory stimulation output section for presenting an auditory stimulation to the user during a period in which the video is being presented to the user; a biological signal measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal of the user; and an electroencephalogram processing section for acquiring an event-related potential from the electroencephalogram signal as reckoned from a point in time at which the auditory stimulation is presented. | 12-05-2013 |
20140072127 | UNCOMFORTABLE LOUDNESS LEVEL ESTIMATING SYSTEM, UNCOMFORTABLE LOUDNESS LEVEL ESTIMATING DEVICE, UNCOMFORTABLE LOUDNESS LEVEL ESTIMATING METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR SAME - An uncomfortable sound pressure estimation system includes: a biological signal measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal of a user; a sound stimulation output section for presenting a sound stimulation group to the user, the sound stimulation group including a first sound, a second sound, and a third sound which are pure tones of the same frequency and which consecutively decrease in sound pressure within a predetermined range; an extraction section for, from the electroencephalogram signal in a predetermined zone defined based on a point of presenting at least one of the second sound and the third sound as a starting point, extracting an N1-P2-amplitude related or wavelet-coefficient related characteristic amount of event-related potential of the electroencephalogram signal; and a determination section for determining an uncomfortable sound pressure at the frequency of the sound stimulation group based on the characteristic amount extracted by the extraction section. | 03-13-2014 |
20140072130 | UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE ESTIMATION SYSTEM, UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE ESTIMATION APPARATUS, UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE ESTIMATION METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM THEREOF - An exemplary uncomfortable sound pressure estimation system includes: a sound stimulation scheduling section configured to determine points in time of outputting a group of sound stimulations so that times of measurement for event-related potentials in response to the second sound and third sound arrive after a predetermined noise-lingering time has elapsed since a next point of occurrence of periodic noise; an event-related potential characteristic amount extraction section configured to receive the points in time of outputting the sound stimulation group, and extract a characteristic amount of an event-related potential of the electroencephalogram signal based on each point of outputting the group of sound stimulations as a starting point; and an uncomfortable sound pressure determination section configured to determine an uncomfortable sound pressure for the frequency of the sound stimulation group. | 03-13-2014 |
20140105436 | HEARING AID GAIN DETERMINATION SYSTEM, HEARING AID GAIN DETERMINATION METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM - A hearing aid gain determination system includes: a biological signal measurement section for measureing an electroencephalogram signal; a sound group determination section for determining a frequency of a sound group including first, second and third sounds; a sound pressure determination section for determining sound pressures of the first to third sounds so that the respective sound pressures are less than a threshold and that the first to third sounds consecutively decrease; an output section for presenting the first to third sounds at the determined frequency and sound pressures; a characteristic amount extraction section for extracting a characteristic amount concerning time-frequency information of an event-related potential in a time range after presenting the first to third sounds; a gain determination section for determining a hearing aid gain for the frequency of the sound stimulation group against a predetermined criterion based on the characteristic amounts. | 04-17-2014 |
20140153729 | SPEECH-SOUND DISTINGUISHING ABILITY DETERMINATION APPARATUS, SPEECH-SOUND DISTINGUISHING ABILITY DETERMINATION SYSTEM, HEARING AID GAIN DETERMINATION APPARATUS, SPEECH-SOUND DISTINGUISHING ABILITY DETERMINATION METHOD, AND PROGRAM THEREOF - In a speech discrimination ability determination system, an MMN determination section acquires, with respect to each of the first and second speech sounds, difference information between the event-related potential acquired during its output with the first occurrence frequency and the event-related potential acquired during its output with the second occurrence frequency, and determines whether a negative component exists in the difference information in predetermined time ranges after the first and second speech sounds are output. When the determination result indicates that the negative component exists, a discrimination ability determination section determines that the user discriminates the first and second speech sounds. | 06-05-2014 |
20150016618 | UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE EVALUATION SYSTEM, UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE EVALUATION APPARATUS, UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE ADJUSTMENT APPARATUS, UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND PRESSURE EVALUATION METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM THEREOF - An exemplary uncomfortable sound pressure evaluation system consecutively presents sound stimulation groups to a user. Each sound stimulation group includes a sound stimulation, and the sound stimulation groups differ in frequency from one another. The system includes: an extraction section configured to extract, for each sound stimulation group, information concerning event-related potential relating to the sound stimulation; an estimation section configured to estimate an uncomfortable sound pressure (UCL) of the user from the information concerning event-related potential; and a correction section configured to determine whether the estimated UCL is higher than a predefined maximum UCL or not, and if a proportion of those determination results which indicate the UCL to be higher than the maximum UCL is smaller than predetermined, correcting each UCL determined as higher than the maximum UCL to a sound pressure equal to or less than the maximum UCL. | 01-15-2015 |