Objective
In everyday life, people listen to speech under a wide range of conditions that are “non-optimal” relative to the controlled conditions in laboratory experiments. Classical research methods can only deal with the effects of individual “adverse” conditions. This has contributed to the fragmentation of speech communication research in numerous sub-disciplines that have little interaction. While each type of adversity can have important consequences on its own, it is often the combination of conditions that conspire to create serious communication problems especially for elderly and hearing impaired persons.
The long-term objective of Investigating Speech Processing in Realistic Environments (INSPIRE) is creating a community of researchers who can exploit synergies between the sub-disciplines that investigate individual aspects of speech communication, resulting in a new curriculum: Real-world speech communication. We will develop novel research methods that take advantage of the massive amounts of experimental data that are becoming available and allow for the analysis of communication behaviours in real-world situations characterised by simultaneous presence of multiple “adverse” conditions. Computational models will be developed that allow to predict speech intelligibility for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners under realistic conditions. INSPIRE will create a permanent collection of measurement data and tools that are accessible for external researchers for testing and comparing speech intelligibility models, thus enabling a breakthrough improvement in hearing instrument tuning.
INSPIRE will achieve its objectives by bringing together E(S)Rs with leading academic scientists from the core disciplines in speech communication, R&D personnel from leading companies in acoustics and hearing instruments and ENT specialists from hospitals that treat people with hearing impairments. All research projects in the network will address multiple “adverse” conditions.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN
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Funding Scheme
MC-ITN - Networks for Initial Training (ITN)Coordinator
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands
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Participants (10)
2800 Kongens Lyngby
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3000 Leuven
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5656 AG Eindhoven
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33720 Tampere
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48940 Leioa
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WC1E 6BT London
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EH8 9YL Edinburgh
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Participation ended
BS8 1QU Bristol
YO10 5DD York North Yorkshire
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S10 2TN Sheffield
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