JPH0630499A - Method and device for processing acoustic signal - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] To provide a device which enables users to enjoy a television or the like while having conversation while using a hearing aid. [Structure] Audio information from a television or the like is input from the audio input terminal 5, and normally this audio is amplified and output from the headphones 10. At this time, when loud sound information such as an interrogation is input from the microphone 1, the level determination circuit 11 operates and the relay contact 12 is switched, so that the multiplier of the multiplication circuit 3 and the divisor of the division circuit 7 are simultaneously operated. Change to increase,
The input sound of the microphone 1 is output to the headphone 10 after being amplified relatively more than the sound of the television or the like. [Effect] It is possible to remove the adverse effect that an unrealistic sound field including noise concentrates on the ears and to hear the voice information from the microphone only when it is truly necessary.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a sound signal processing method and apparatus, and more particularly to a sound signal processing method and apparatus suitable for use in a hearing aid for the hearing impaired.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Hearing aids used by hearing impaired persons have various external shapes, but are basically composed of a microphone (or an induction coil for receiving a telephone call), an amplifier and an earphone (headphone). Acoustic information around the wearer is collected by a microphone, amplified by an amplifier to a level that compensates for the deterioration of hearing function, and the amplified ambient acoustic information is heard via the earphone.

In recent years, due to advances in digital signal technology, individual-purpose digital hearing aids capable of coping with a wide variety of fault conditions, and amplifiers mainly for the purpose of eliminating the discomfort carried by the wearer as much as possible. Research and development have been conducted on more advanced functions in terms of functionality, such as a loudness-compensating hearing aid that can also adjust the gain of the in real time. Such a situation is described in, for example, the Acoustical Society of Japan, Vol. 47, No. 6 (19
91), pages 373 to 379, and the like.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The above prior art aims to improve the function so that even a person whose hearing function has deteriorated can hear the surrounding acoustic information at the same sound field level as that of a healthy person. However, no consideration is given to the usability of the hearing aid wearers, especially those with presbycusis, to have a smooth conversation with their family while watching TV and to have a smooth daily life. In other words, about three-quarters of people with presbycusis who do not hear daily conversations or voices on TV or telephone do not use hearing aids (June 5, 1991). Tokyo Shimbun evening paper Science & Life column).

There are various possible causes, but if the sound volume of a TV or daily conversation that is optimal for a healthy person is simply amplified, the noise components in daily life will also be amplified at the same time and can be heard at the ears, resulting in an extremely annoying situation. turn into. Therefore, when hearing-impaired people watch TV, they have to use the earphones attached to the TV or increase the volume of the TV or stereo, and as a result, the opportunity to interact with families with normal hearing is hindered. Will be done.

A main object of the present invention is to electrically process a plurality of types of sound source signals into acoustic signals, and to relatively reduce the sizes of the plurality of acoustic signals according to the actual conditions of the required acoustic signals. A method of controlling an acoustic signal and a device therefor. Another object of the present invention is to provide a hearing aid that enables hearing-impaired people with impaired hearing function to enjoy TV and music while having a natural conversation with a hearing-impaired person. .

[0007]

To achieve the above object, electric signals based on acoustic signals of a plurality of systems such as a microphone and an audio input terminal are subjected to signal processing including amplification processing, and mixed after the signal processing. In the method of converting from sound to sound, each amplification processing of the above signal processing is complementarily interlocked. In addition, a sound processing device that implements the above method includes a plurality of electric signal input units that respectively correspond to sound signals of a plurality of systems, and a plurality of amplifier circuits that are provided for each of the plurality of electric signal input units. A signal processing unit, a unit for combining outputs of the plurality of signal processing units and converting into an acoustic signal, and a size of at least one of output signals of the plurality of electric signal input units are determined, and the plurality of units are determined based on a determination result. And a means for setting the gain of the amplifier circuit of the signal processing means in a complementary interlocking manner.

Complementarily interlocking the gains of the amplification processing and the amplification circuit is to increase the amplification degree of amplification of a specific system and decrease the amplification degree of other systems. As one embodiment of the present invention, a microphone is used as one electric signal input means, and an input terminal of a television or an audio device is used as the other means, these electric signals are amplified and mixed, and the same acoustic signal is obtained. In a hearing aid, etc., a comparator that determines a signal level of an electric signal from a microphone is further provided with a multiplication circuit and a division circuit in each of an amplifier that amplifies an electric signal from a microphone and an amplifier that amplifies an electric signal from an audio input terminal. A hearing aid is constructed by controlling the multiplication circuit and the division circuit by the output of the circuit and the comparator circuit to switch the gain of the amplifier. In addition, complementarily interlocking the amplification processing (gain of the amplification circuit) is not limited to the level of the audio signal in the hearing aid, but is not limited to the specific frequency component of the audio signal or the audio signal, and may be any of various alarm sounds. .

[0009]

According to the present invention, when the signals of a plurality of sound sources are individually processed and converted into mixed sound, a plurality of amplification processes are complementarily interlocked with each other depending on the contents of the signals of a specific sound source. Therefore, the required sound in the mixed sound is automatically emphasized. For example, when configured as the above hearing aid, when the input volume from the microphone exceeds a certain value, even when listening to the audio information from the audio input terminal, the volume on the microphone side automatically increases, and conversely The volume on the input terminal side acts to decrease. Thereby, for example, in the case where the sound of a television or the like is heard through the audio input terminal, there is an effect that it is possible to promptly deal with the call from the other through the microphone.

The specific signal component separating / extracting circuit recognizes a ringing tone of a telephone, a sound of a door chime and a sound of an emergency bell from the input voice information, and a conversation voice limited to a specific speaker such as a family. (Which is possible by analyzing the frequency spectrum as well as the formants). As a result, even when enjoying music or the like while keeping the volume of the system of the audio input terminal of the hearing aid large, it is possible to promptly respond to a truly necessary external action.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a first embodiment of an audio signal processing device according to the present invention. A stereo microphone amplifier 2 for amplifying the outputs of the condenser microphones 1a and 1b, and a part of the output is a mode setting switch 1
5, a level determination circuit 11 applied via 5 and a relay contact 12 for reflecting the result, and one of a voltage varied by the first volume 13 or a second volume 14 via the relay contact 12. A multiplication circuit 3 that multiplies the output of the amplifier 2 with each other, a delay circuit 4 that delays the output of the multiplication circuit 3, a preamplifier 6 that amplifies an input from the audio input terminal 5, and the relay contact 12
The voltage signal X from the output of the preamplifier 6 and the division circuit 7, which mixes the output of the delay circuit 4 and the output of the division circuit 7, the output of the mixing circuit 8 via the headphone amplifier 9 The stereo headphone 10 to be added is included.

First, the audio input terminal 5 is connected to an earphone jack of a television, and the volume 13 is adjusted with the mode setting switch 15 on the ON side (the middle value of the volume 13, that is, the calculation coefficient X1 is 0). .1
(Variable in the range of 10), set so that the TV sound is heard optimally. Next, the mode setting switch 15 is switched to the OFF side (in this state, the input level of the level determination circuit 11 automatically increases, and the relay contact 12 is connected to the side opposite to NC), and the microphones 1a and 1b The input voice is adjusted by the volume 14 so as to be optimum (the value of the midpoint of the volume 14, that is, the calculation coefficient X2
Varies from 0.1 to 10), and then the mode setting switch 15 is returned to the ON side. The overall volume control can be performed by a third volume (not shown) inside the headphone amplifier 9.

Here, the value of the coefficient X1 is 0.5 and the value of the coefficient X2 is
When the value of is set to 2.0, the output of the preamplifier 6 of the audio input system is doubled by the division circuit 7 (division calculation power Z = Y ÷ X), while the output of the microphone amplifier 2 is attenuated to half. (Multiplication output Z =
YxX), mixing amplifier 8 and headphone amplifier 9
After that, the headphones 10 hear the TV sound at a volume four times higher than that of the sound information input from the microphone 1. At this time, "Grandpa!"
If a loud call is made, the level determination circuit 11 operates, the relay contact 13 is connected to the opposite side of NC, and the multiplier X input of the multiplication circuit 3 and the divisor X input of the division circuit 7 are the value of X2. That is, since it is 2.0 according to the above assumption, the multiplication circuit 3 amplifies the signal by a factor of 2, the division circuit 7 performs the attenuation operation of ½, and the headphone 10 reduces the sound of the TV and the sound delay. Microphone 1 delayed by circuit 4 (about 100 milliseconds in the embodiment)
The voices from a and 1b are heard at a volume of four times.

FIG. 2 is a circuit block diagram showing the configuration of the level determination circuit 11 of FIG. The waveform is smoothed by the low-pass filter 22 after being input to the detection circuit 21 through the ON-side contact of the mode setting switch 15 to be rectified, and the comparator 23 determines whether or not the waveform is a certain value or more. The contact 12 is brought into contact with the side opposite to NC.

FIG. 3 is a signal waveform diagram of each part for explaining the operation of the embodiment of FIG. FIG. 3A shows the output signal of the preamplifier (6 in FIG. 1) of the audio input system. FIG. 2B shows the output waveform of the headphone amplifier (2 in FIG. 1),
That is, it is an input voice signal waveform from the microphone 1 (actually, it is a stereo signal, so it is a waveform of one channel), and the central portion thereof simulates the portion called "Grandpa!" FIG. 3C shows a waveform (output 21 of FIG. 2) obtained by detecting the input audio signal, and FIG. 2D shows a state in which the detected waveform is smoothed by a low-pass filter (22 of FIG. 2). . Here, when the value becomes larger in the plus direction than the predetermined binarization level (the operation is performed so as to show the large plus value even when the input of the detection circuit 21 in FIG. 2 is open). ) The multiplier or divisor is switched, and the state is shown in (e) of the figure (indicates switching of the relay contact 12 in FIG. 1).

Further, FIG. 6 (f) shows a state in which the microphone input voice is delayed for a predetermined time (output waveform of the voice delay circuit 4 in FIG. 1). FIG. 6G shows the input waveform to the headphone amplifier (9 in FIG. 1), and when the input voice level is below a certain value (FIG. 6E is low level).
The audio information component from the audio input terminal 5 occupies most of it (because the gain ratio is 4 times according to the above assumption),
On the contrary, the voice information from the input of the microphones 1a and 1b is delayed by a certain value or more, or when the mode setting switch (15 in FIGS. 1 and 2) is in the OFF state (when the same (e) is high level). The voice information from the microphone 1 is relatively large.

FIG. 4 is an external view of the apparatus used in the first embodiment. The dimensions are the same as the IC card, and although omitted in the above description, there are two audio input systems. According to the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, even a person who is unavoidably wearing a hearing aid due to a deterioration or impairment of his / her hearing function can spend the same amount of time with his / her family and friends as a hearing-impaired person while watching TV. It will be possible. Further, by making it portable, it can be used also as a normal stereo hearing aid, and it becomes habitual to wear the hearing aid, and resistance to wearing can be softened.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the second embodiment of the audio signal processing device according to the present invention. The difference of this embodiment from the embodiment of FIG. 1 is that a specific voice pattern recognition circuit 31 and a second mode setting switch 32 are added to the configuration of FIG. The same functions and components as in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals. Here, it is assumed that the situation setting and the like are exactly the same as those in the first embodiment, and the second mode switch 32 is set to the J side and the mode changeover switch 15 is operated in the same manner as in the first embodiment. Adjust the volume.

Generally, since the path through which the television sound passes through the audio input terminal 5, the input amplifier 6 and the division circuit 7 has a larger gain, it can be said that almost all the television sound is heard. Same as the example. However, since the voice information around the wearer of the device received by the microphones 1a and 1b is input to the specific voice pattern recognition circuit 31 via the microphone amplifier 2, the information other than the information registered as the specific voice pattern is drastically changed. Output from the specific voice pattern recognition circuit 31 in the attenuated state,
It is input to the multiplication circuit 3 and the voice level determination circuit 11.

Under these circumstances, when the specific voice pattern recognition circuit 31 recognizes a registered voice pattern such as a door chime sound of a visitor, a bell sound of a telephone set, or a vocal sound of a family, the recognition circuit 31 recognizes from the microphone 1. When the input sound is passed through as it is, and it is above a certain volume, the sound level determination circuit 11 is activated and the relay contact 12 is switched, so that it is the same as in the case of the first embodiment. In addition, the gain of the microphone input system is relatively larger than the gain of the audio input terminal system. In addition, the second mode switch 32
Is set to the M side, and the attenuation rate of the specific voice pattern recognition circuit 31 (ratio between the pass rate of the voice information signal having the unregistered voice pattern and the pass rate of the voice information signal having the registered voice pattern) is made relatively small. If this is done, only the necessary audio information will be selected and amplified, eliminating the discomfort of continuing to listen to noise sound that does not have a realistic sensation, and the hearing aid can be worn.

According to the second embodiment, even a person with impaired hearing function or a disability can listen to the sound of TV, stereo, etc. silently, and even in such a situation,
Since only truly necessary voice information can be selected and heard from the interrupted voice from the outside, such a hearing aid device can be used with peace of mind. Although the hearing aids for the hearing impaired have been described in the above embodiment,
It is also suitable for use in a portable or stationary tape recorder, a CD (compact disc) play, or an output unit.

It is also possible to attach an adapter to the audio input terminal and receive voice information by so-called radio waves such as radio wave coupling or optical coupling. At that time, the system is more suitable in terms of usability. Also in this case, a system with excellent portability can be realized by making the headphone amplifier and the subsequent components portable and housing the signal processing circuit and the like in the preceding stage in the main body of a television or the like. The voice delay circuit can be easily realized by an IC memory, but its memory effect can be applied and a re-listening function by self-operation can be added, so "deterioration of language comprehension" often seen in elderly people. It is possible to realize an extremely effective system as a measure against hearing-impaired persons.

[0023]

[Effects of the Invention] According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a hearing aid capable of sharing a place of cooperation with a family member or a friend or acquaintance of a friend even if the hearing aid has to be worn for some reason. . In addition, even when using a transportation system with headphones attached, such as a portable tape recorder, it is possible to identify emergency sound information such as a horn sound, so a safer portable audio system for the user. A device can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of an audio signal processing device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a circuit block diagram showing a configuration of a level determination circuit of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a waveform diagram for explaining the operation of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 4 is an external view of the apparatus of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the audio signal processing device according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Condenser microphone, 2 ... Stereo microphone amplifier, 3 ... Multiplier circuit,
4 ... Audio delay circuit, 5 ... Audio input terminal,
6 ... Input preamplifier, 7 ... Division circuit,
8 ... Mixing circuit, 9 ... Headphone amplifier, 10 ... Stereo headphones, 11 ... Level determination circuit, 12 ... Relay, 13 ... First
Volume control volume, 14 ... Second volume control volume, 15 ... Mode setting switch, 21 ... Detection circuit, 22 ... Low pass filter, 23 ... Comparator, 31 ... Specific voice pattern recognition circuit, 32 ...
Second mode setting switch.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Yoshihito Nahito 1-280, Higashi-Kengokubo, Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo Inside the Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A method in which electric signals based on acoustic signals of a plurality of systems are subjected to signal processing including amplification processing, and after the signal processing is mixed and then converted into acoustic signals, each amplification processing of the signal processing is complemented. Acoustic signal processing method characterized by interlocking with each other. 2. The acoustic signal processing method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the electric signals based on the acoustic signals of the plurality of systems is obtained by converting voice into an electric signal by an acoustoelectric converter. Audio signal processing method. 3. A plurality of electric signal input means respectively corresponding to a plurality of systems of acoustic signals, a plurality of signal processing means including an amplifier circuit provided for each of the plurality of electric signal input means, and A means for synthesizing outputs of a plurality of signal processing means and converting into an acoustic signal, and at least one of the output signals of the plurality of electric signal input means are selected, and the magnitude of the selected electric input signal is determined and determined. An acoustic signal processing apparatus having a control means for complementarily setting the gains of the amplifier circuits of the plurality of signal processing means based on the result. 4. The acoustic signal processing device according to claim 3, wherein one of the plurality of electric signal input means is a microphone for converting an acoustic signal containing a voice into an electric signal, and the control means outputs the voice from the microphone. An acoustic signal processing device comprising: a comparator that determines the level of a signal; and means that controls the gains of the plurality of amplifiers by complementarily interlocking with each other using the result of the determination. 5. The acoustic signal processing device according to claim 3, wherein one of the plurality of electric signal input means is a microphone for converting an acoustic signal containing a voice into an electric signal, and the control means outputs the voice from the microphone. An identification circuit for identifying a specific speaker of a signal, and a gain of an amplifier circuit for processing a voice signal from the microphone when the specific speaker is identified are increased to process other signals. The audio signal processing device is configured by means for lowering the gain of the amplifier circuit. 6. The acoustic signal processing device according to claim 3, wherein the control means detects a specific acoustic signal from at least one of the plurality of electric signal input means, and the specific acoustic signal. Is detected, the gain of the amplification circuit of the signal processing means for processing the signal of the specific sound is increased, and the gain of the amplification circuit for processing other signals is decreased. Signal processing device. 7. A microphone, a first arithmetic circuit for arithmetically operating an electric signal from the microphone, an audio input terminal, a second arithmetic circuit for arithmetically operating an electric signal from the audio input terminal, and the first first and second arithmetic circuits. And means for mixing the outputs of the second arithmetic circuit and converting them into an acoustic signal;
A comparator that determines the input level of the arithmetic circuit of
A circuit for obtaining an arithmetic signal selected by the output of the comparator, wherein the first arithmetic circuit is a multiplication circuit for multiplying the electric signal from the microphone by the arithmetic signal, and the second arithmetic circuit Is composed of a division circuit for dividing an electric signal from the audio input terminal by the operation signal. 8. The hearing aid according to claim 7, wherein a detection circuit for detecting a specific voice pattern is added between the microphone and the first arithmetic circuit, and an input side of the second arithmetic circuit is provided, A hearing aid comprising a switching circuit for selecting one of the output of the detection circuit and the electric signal from the audio input terminal and inputting it to the second arithmetic circuit.