Audio and speech quality prediction for normal hearing and hearing impaired people, based on the Oldenburg Perception Model (PEMO)

The PEMO-Q software package serves to predict perceived quality differences between audio signals. It is based on the work of Huber and Kollmeier (2006), which in turn extended the approach of Hansen and Kollmeier (2000), using the “Oldenburg Perception Model” (“PEMO”) of Dau et al. (1996, 1997) for computing “internal representations” of signal pairs. These internal representations are compared quantitatively basically by calculating the linear cross correlation coefficient. The resulting correlation value serves as an objective measure of the perceptual similarity between two audio signals.

The software is provided as MATLAB® functions (as pre-parsed pseudo-code files [P-files] with accompanying mex files) under MS Windows® operating systems, LINUX and macOS. It comprises three functions: "audioqual", "audioqual_hi" and "speechqual". audioqual is the implementation of the actual PEMO-Q method introduced by Huber and Kollmeier (2006). audioqual_hi corresponds to audioqual, extended for hearing impairments. The extension follows the work of Derleth et al. (2001). The extended audio quality model was presented in Huber et al. (2014). speechqual computes the speech quality metric “qc” described by Hansen and Kollmeier (2000).

Please feel free to download and use the PEMO-Q software. When you publish results obtained with the software, please cite the corresponding publications.

• Dau, T., Püschel, D., and Kohlrausch, A. (1996). "A quantitative model of the 'effective' signal processing in the auditory system. I. Model structure," J. Acoust. Soc. Am 99(6), 3615-3622. DOI: 10.1121/1.414959
• Dau, T., Kollmeier, B., and Kohlrausch, A. (1997). “Modeling auditory processing of amplitude modulation.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102(5), 2892-2905. DOI: 10.1121/1.420344
• Derleth, R.P., Dau, T., and Kollmeier, B. (2001). “Modelling temporal and compressive properties of the normal and impaired auditory system“. Hearing Research 159, 132-149. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-5955(01)00322-7
• Hansen, M. and Kollmeier, B. (2000). "Objective modelling of speech quality with a psychacoustically validated auditory model," J. Audio Eng. Soc. 48(5), 395-409
• Huber, R. and Kollmeier, B. (2006). "PEMO-Q–A new Method for Objective Audio Quality Assessment using a Model of Auditory Perception." IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language processing 14(6), 1902-1911. DOI: 10.1109/TASL.2006.883259
• Huber, R., Parsa, V., and Scollie, S. (2014) “Predicting the perceived sound quality of frequency-compressed speech,” PLoS ONE 9(11):e110260. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110260