Intelligibility of speech in noise under diotic and dichotic binaurallistening

Binaural sound reproduction (BSR) can improve speech intelligibility due to spatial release from masking(SRM), in the case where the signals are reproduced in such a manner that they are perceived as arrivingto the listener from different directions. However, the effect of BSR on speech intelligibility has not yetbeen thoroughly studied for different noise conditions that involve diotic or binaural playback via head-phones. In this work, a hearing in noise test (HINT) is performed, in which both the target and the noiseare presented over headphones, in order to compare the speech intelligibility in the following conditions:(1) target and noise signals are displayed as diotic signals, (2) target is binaurally reproduced and noise isdiotic, (3) target is diotic and noise is binaurally reproduced, and (4) target and noise signals are binau-rally reproduced at the same direction. The results show that the speech intelligibility is significantly bet-ter in condition 2 relative to the other conditions.