Histogram equalization of speech representation for robust speech recognition

Abstract

This paper describes a method of compensating for nonlinear distortions in speech representation caused by noise. The method described here is based on the histogram equalization method often used in digital image processing. Histogram equalization is applied to each component of the feature vector in order to improve the robustness of speech recognition systems. The paper describes how the proposed method can be applied to robust speech recognition and it is compared with other compensation techniques. The recognition experiments, including results in the AURORA II framework, demonstrate the effectiveness of histogram equalization when it is applied either alone or in combination with other compensation techniques.