An Artificial Environment is Often a Noisy Environment: Auditory Scene Analysis and Speech Perception in Noise

Our auditory system has to organize and to pick up a target sound with many components, sometimes rejecting irrelevant sound components, but sometimes forming multiple streams including the target stream. This situation is well described with the concept of auditory scene analysis. Research on speech perception in noise is closely related to auditory scene analysis. This paper briefly reviews the concept of auditory scene analysis and previous and ongoing research on speech perception in noise, and discusses the future direction of research. Further experimental investigations are needed to understand our perceptual mechanisms better.