Personalized Sound Filtering for Auditory Overload Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing diversity and intensity of background sounds lead to auditory overload, impacting health and safety as individuals struggle to distinguish important sounds from irrelevant noise, causing stress, sleeplessness, and other health risks.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for personalized sound management using devices with microphones, speakers, and processors that select and load applications to modify the acoustic environment, analyzing sonic signatures with Gaussian mixture models, and providing user control through applications like Safe Space, EarGuard, Quiet Call, and Earbliss to filter and prioritize relevant sounds.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the brain processes all background sounds to distinguish important sounds, then sound discrimination capability is improved, but auditory overload increases causing health and safety issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary sound management system that includes a microphone to capture ambient sounds, a processor to analyze and classify sounds using algorithms, and a speaker to deliver filtered sound output. This intermediary system performs the discrimination function externally, relieving the brain from processing all background sounds while still enabling identification of important sounds.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and separates important sounds from the mixture of background sounds using signal processing techniques. The system identifies and isolates specific sound patterns (such as speech, alarms, or other priority sounds) from the ambient noise, delivering only the extracted important sounds to the user, thereby avoiding auditory overload from processing all sounds.
2Measurement precision
If background sound levels are reduced to hear important sounds, then hearing important sounds is improved, but the diversity and intensity of acoustic information decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The sound management system acts as an intermediary that selectively enhances important sounds rather than simply reducing background noise levels. The processor analyzes ambient sounds and amplifies or highlights priority sounds while maintaining a natural acoustic environment, thus improving hearing capability without significantly altering the overall acoustic information diversity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs parameter changes in sound processing, such as adjusting frequency response, gain, and temporal characteristics of different sound components. By dynamically modifying these parameters based on the identified important sounds, the system enhances hearing capability while preserving the natural diversity of the acoustic environment.
3Reliability
If personalized sound management applications are implemented, then listening quality and safety are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The sound management device is designed with multi-functionality, integrating microphone, processor, and speaker into a single universal unit that can perform multiple functions: capturing ambient sounds, analyzing sound patterns, classifying sounds, and delivering filtered output. This universal device reduces overall system complexity compared to having separate systems for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The processor in the sound management device automatically analyzes and classifies sounds using embedded algorithms without requiring constant user intervention. The system self-adjusts based on the acoustic environment, providing personalized sound management autonomously, which simplifies the user interface and reduces operational complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A personalized sound management system for an acoustic space includes at least one transducer, a data communication system, one or more processors operatively coupled to the data communication system and the at least one transducer, and a medium coupled to the one or more processors. The processors access a database of sonic signatures and display a plurality of personalized sound management applications that perform at least one or more tasks among identifying a sonic signature, calculating a sound pressure level, storing metadata related to a sonic signature, monitoring sound pressure level dosage levels, switching to an ear canal microphone in a noisy environment, recording a user's voice, storing the user's voice in a memory of an earpiece device, or storing the user's voice in a memory of a server system, or converting received text received in texts or emails to voice using text to speech conversion. Other embodiments are disclosed.