Abstract:
This study investigates the possible use of reverberation as masking sounds to maintain speech privacy through subjective listening tests. Speech privacy [1], particularly in a public open space, is an important issue for people in many situations. Whether the speech topic is confidential information in an open plan office [2], or a private conversation while on busy public transport, there is need for a speech privacy tool. To be successful, a speech privacy system should fulfil certain characteristics. First, it should cause speech to be unintelligible to people nearby; it does not matter if they can still hear that there is a conversation taking place, so long as they cannot understand what is being said. Second, the masking sound produced should not cause too much distraction for the people nearby. This is an important consideration that will limit any negative social impacts of the system.