Patent ID: 8560308

Claim:
A speech sound enhancement device comprising: an SNR calculation unit configured to calculate an SNR which is a ratio of received speech sound to ambient noise; a first calculation unit configured to calculate, based on the SNR and frequency-range division information that indicates a first frequency range and a second frequency range, an enhancement magnitude of the first frequency range in a case in which the received speech sound is masked by the ambient noise, the first frequency range contributing to an improvement of subjective intelligibility of the received speech sound, the second frequency range contributing to an improvement of subjective articulation of the received speech sound; a second calculation unit configured to calculate an enhancement magnitude of the second frequency range based on the enhancement magnitude of the first frequency range; a spectrum processing unit configured to process spectra of the received speech sound using the enhancement magnitude of the first frequency range, the enhancement magnitude of the second frequency range and the frequency-range division information; and a third calculation unit configured to calculate articulation of the received speech sound based on at least one of a pitch frequency of the received speech sound and a power spectrum of the received speech sound, wherein the second calculation unit calculates the enhancement magnitude of the second frequency range based on the enhancement magnitude of the first frequency range and the calculated articulation of the received speech sound, and wherein the spectrum processing unit processes the spectra of the received speech sound using the enhancement magnitude of the first frequency range and the enhancement magnitude of the second frequency range.