Publications

Journal articles

2024

1. Performance of single-channel speech enhancement algorithms on Mandarin listeners with different immersion conditions in New Zealand English

   Yunqi C Zhang, Yusuke Hioka, C. T. Justine Hui, and Catherine I Watson

   Speech Communication, 2024

   Bib

   @article{Zhang2024_specom,
     author = {Zhang, Yunqi C and Hioka, Yusuke and Hui, C. T. Justine and Watson, Catherine I},
     doi = {10.1016/j.specom.2023.103026},
     journal = {Speech Communication},
     keywords = {Speech intelligibility,Speech enhancement,Immersion condition,Mandarin,New zealand english,Phonetic analysis,speech intelligibility},
     number = {December 2023},
     pages = {103026},
     title = {{Performance of single-channel speech enhancement algorithms on Mandarin listeners with different immersion conditions in New Zealand English}},
     volume = {157},
     year = {2024},
   }

2023

1. Word identification of New Zealand English by native Japanese listeners with and without exposure to New Zealand English

   C. T. Justine Hui, Hinako Masuda, Yusuke Hioka, and Catherine I Watson

   Acoust. Sci. Technol., 2023

   Bib PDF

   @article{Hui2023_AST,
     author = {Hui, C. T. Justine and Masuda, Hinako and Hioka, Yusuke and Watson, Catherine I},
     doi = {10.1250/ast.44.29},
     journal = {Acoust. Sci. Technol.},
     keywords = {error confusion,second language acquisition,speech intelligibility},
     number = {1},
     pages = {29--32},
     title = {{Word identification of New Zealand English by native Japanese listeners with and without exposure to New Zealand English}},
     volume = {44},
     year = {2023},
   }

2022

1. Performance evaluation of speech masking design among listeners with varying language backgrounds

   Hinako Masuda, Yusuke Hioka, C. T. Justine Hui, Jesin James, and Catherine I. Watson

   Appl. Acoust., 2022

   Abs Bib

   Speech masking is a technique used for protecting speech confidentiality, which is realised by adding maskers to cover target speech. Numerous studies have demonstrated the native and non-native differences in perceiving masked speech, but few have compared the effect of masker types from the perspective of effectiveness of speech privacy and their annoyance levels. This paper reports on the result of an English word perception task by native and non-native listeners where six types of maskers, both speech-like and non-speech-like, are implemented, as well as the annoyance levels of each masker. Natives, non-natives residing in an English-speaking country, and non-natives residing in a non-English-speaking country were tasked to write down sentences when masking sound was present, and also to rate the annoyance levels of the maskers. Results showed that language background significantly affected the performance of unmasked speech, the difference between the two non-native listeners became minimal in the presence of maskers, and maskers annoyed the listener groups differently, calling for a discussion in the selection of a universally effective masker to increase speech privacy.

   @article{Masuda2022,
     author = {Masuda, Hinako and Hioka, Yusuke and Hui, C. T. Justine and James, Jesin and Watson, Catherine I.},
     doi = {10.1016/j.apacoust.2022.109122},
     issn = {1872910X},
     journal = {Appl. Acoust.},
     keywords = {Annoyance,Intelligibility,Nativeness,Speech masking,Speech privacy},
     pages = {109122},
     publisher = {Elsevier Ltd},
     title = {{Performance evaluation of speech masking design among listeners with varying language backgrounds}},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2022.109122},
     volume = {201},
     year = {2022},
   }

2. Differences between listeners with early and late immersion age in spatial release from masking in various acoustic environments

   C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, Hinako Masuda, and Catherine I. Watson

   Speech Commun., 2022

2021

1. Differences in speech intelligibility in noise between native and non-native listeners under Ambisonics-based sound reproduction system

   C. T. Justine Hui, Eugena Au, Shirley Xiao, Yusuke Hioka, Catherine I. Watson, and Hinako Masuda

   Appl. Acoust., 2021

   Bib

   @article{Hui2021_SRM_AALetter,
     author = {Hui, C. T. Justine and Au, Eugena and Xiao, Shirley and Hioka, Yusuke and Watson, Catherine I. and Masuda, Hinako},
     doi = {10.1016/j.apacoust.2021.108368},
     journal = {Appl. Acoust.},
     title = {{Differences in speech intelligibility in noise between native and non-native listeners under Ambisonics-based sound reproduction system}},
     volume = {184},
     year = {2021},
   }

2. Effect of prior exposure on the perception of Japanese vowel length contrast in reverberation for nonnative listeners

   Eri Osawa, C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, and Takayuki Arai

   Speech Commun., 2021
3. Speech intelligibility in noise with varying spatial acoustics under Ambisonics-based sound reproduction system

   Eugena Au, Shirley Xiao, C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, Hinako Masuda, and Catherine I. Watson

   Appl. Acoust., 2021

   Abs

   The present study investigates the effect of noise on speech intelligibility under an Ambisonics-based sound reproduction system, which is a commonly used technique for realising audio virtual reality. The sound reproduction system was built in an anechoic chamber using a 16 channel spherical loudspeaker array. A commercially available first-order Ambisonics microphone array was utilised for collecting room impulse responses of rooms with different acoustic characteristics, and a decoder for generating signals rendered from the loudspeaker array. A subjective listening test was conducted in the sound reproduction system examining how intelligibility of sentences is compromised by noise under virtually reproduced acoustics environments with various acoustical conditions. Particular focus was given to investigating the effect of the amount of reverberation in rooms as well as the angular separation between the target speech and noise sources, both of which are known to have a significant effect on speech intelligibility in real (i.e. non-virtual) acoustic environment. The experimental results suggest that the intelligibility of speech masked by pink noise was significantly reduced under reverberant acoustical environments reproduced by the Ambisonics-based sound reproduction system compared to the baseline anechoic environment. However, only marginal differences were observed between the acoustical environments with different reverberation time. The effect of spatial release from masking was also observed under the reproduced acoustic environments and showed some correlation with the accuracy of source localisation realised by the sound reproduction system.

4. Spatially target adaptive speech masking - A pilot study on masking effectiveness and annoyance -

   C. T. Justine Hui, Moeto Ikuta, Mochinobu Obata, Takayuki Arai, and Yusuke Hioka

   Appl. Acoust., 2021
5. The effect of fo fall, secondary cues and downstep in perceiving Japanese lexical accent

   Yukiko Sugiyama, C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 2021
6. Quantification of the Psychoacoustic Effect of Noise from Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

   C. T. Justine Hui, Michael J. Kingan, Yusuke Hioka, Gian Schmid, George Dodd, Kim Natasha Dirks, Shaun Edlin, Sean Mascarenhas, and Young-Min Shim

   Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 2021

2020

1. Korean and Japanese listeners’ perception of /ma/ produced by a mechanical vocal- tract model

   Jihyeon Yun, Janice Wing Sze Wong, Jeff Moore, Junya Iwakami, C. T. Justine Hui, Jiayin Gao, and Takayuki Arai

   Acoust. Sci. Technol., 2020
2. Effect of frequency discrimination ability on music and speech perception: A summary of four small studies

   C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   Acoust. Sci. Technol., 2020

2019

1. Effects of sentence structure and word complexity on intelligibility in machine-to-human communications

   C. T. Justine Hui, Sahil Jain, and Catherine I. Watson

   Comput. Speech Lang., 2019
2. Elderly listeners’ identification of Japanese long vowel pair ‘obasan’ and ‘obaasan’ using pitch and duration

   C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   Acoust. Sci. Technol., 2019

Conference and workshop papers

2023

1. Effect of speech enhancement at phonetic level perception of English speech between native english and Mandarin listeners

   Yunqi Clara Zhang, Catherine I. Watson, C. T. Justine Hui, and Yusuke Hioka

   In International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, 2023

2022

1. Performance Of Speech Enhancement Algorithms For Native Mandarin Listeners On English Perception

   Clara Zhang, C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, and Catherine I. Watson

   In Int. Congr. Acoust., 2022
2. Speech privacy through dynamic fundamental frequency matching

   Charlene Lo, C. T. Justine Hui, and Yusuke Hioka

   In Internoise, 2022

2021

1. Comparing Speech Enhancement Techniques for Voice Adaptation-Based Speech Synthesis

   Nicholas Eng, C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, and Catherine I Watson

   In Interspeech, 2021
2. Spatial release from masking in varying spatial acoustic under higher order Ambisonic-based sound reproduction system

   C. T. Justine Hui, Yusuke Hioka, Catherine Watson, and Hinako Masuda

   In Internoise, 2021
3. Quantification of the Psychoacoustic Effect of Noise from Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

   C. T. Justine Hui, Michael J. Kingan, Yusuke Hioka, Gian Schmid, George Dodd, and Kim Natasha Dirks

   In Internoise, 2021

2020

1. Benefit from spatial release from masking for native and non-native speakers in virtual acoustic environments

   C. T. Justine Hui, Eugena Au, Shirley Xiao, Yusuke Hioka, Catherine I. Watson, and Hinako Masuda

   In Internoise, 2020
2. Speech intelligibility of New Zealand English (NZE) by native Japanese listeners

   C. T. Justine Hui, Hinako Masuda, Yusuke Hioka, and Catherine I. Watson

   In Lang. Soc., 2020

2019

1. Effect of frequency discrimination ability of elderly listeners on Japanese pitch accent pairs

   C. T. Justine Hui, Yukiko Sugiyama, and Takayuki Arai

   In Int. Congr. Phonetic Sci., 2019

   Bib PDF

   @inproceedings{Hui2019_ICPhS,
     author = {Hui, C. T. Justine and Sugiyama, Yukiko and Arai, Takayuki},
     booktitle = {Int. Congr. Phonetic Sci.},
     keywords = {ageing,difference limens,hearing impairment,pitch accent,speech perception},
     pages = {1 -- 5},
     title = {{Effect of frequency discrimination ability of elderly listeners on Japanese pitch accent pairs}},
     year = {2019},
   }

2. The effect of lexical pitch accent and downstep on listeners’ word identification in Japanese

   Yukiko Sugiyama, C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   In Int. Conf. Phonetics Phonol., 2019
3. Effect of broadening auditory filters on perception of speech in noise with linear and nonlinear hearing aids (preliminary study)

   Sungmin Lee, C. T. Justine Hui, Takayuki Arai, and Chin-Tuan Tan

   In Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol., 2019
4. Sibilant production by hearing impaired speakers with different experience of auditory compensation

   C. T. Justine Hui, Shruthi Raghavendra, Sungmin Lee, Takayuki Arai, and Chin-Tuan Tan

   In Int. Assoc. Logop. Phoniatr. Congr., 2019

2018

1. A case study to examine differences in pitch shift with and without hearing aids

   C. T. Justine Hui, Takayuki Arai, Kei Kobayashi, and Kenichi Yasu

   In Proc. Spring Meet. Acoust. Soc. Japan, 2018
2. Comparison of unaided and aided psychoacoustic tuning curves with normal hearing and hearing impaired listener

   C. T. Justine Hui, Chin-Tuan Tan, and Takayuki Arai

   In Int. Hear. Aid Res. Conf., 2018
3. Effect of frequency discrimination ability on music and speech perception: A summary of four small studies

   C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   In Int. Symp. Univers. Acoust. Commun., 2018

2017

1. Pitch and duration as auditory cues to identify Japanese long vowels for Japanese learners

   C. T. Justine Hui, and Takayuki Arai

   In Proc. Autumn Meet. Acoust. Soc. Japan, 2017

2016

1. Visualisation tools to analyse phonetic confusions for speech perception tests

   C. T. Justine Hui, Catherine I. Watson, and Takayuki Arai

   In 16th Australas. Int. Conf. Speech Sci. Technol., 2016

2014

1. Automatic Detection of Speech Truncation and Speech Rate

   C. T. Justine Hui, Teh June Chin, and Catherine Watson

   In 15th Australas. Int. Conf. Speech Sci. Technol., 2014