A cue for objective speech quality estimation in temporal envelope representations

In this paper, we investigate a new paradigm of objective speech quality estimation. The proposed nonintrusive method utilizes only processed speech signal, whereas conventional objective models require source speech applied as an input to the system under test, as well as the processed speech. The proposed method is based on the temporal envelope representation of speech, which reflects the perceptual characteristics of human auditory systems and human speech production systems, and we found it provides a useful cue for nonintrusive objective speech quality estimation. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated for four different subjective mean opinion score databases.