A computational model of sound stream segregation
with the multi-agent paradigm

Tomohiro Nakatani, Takeshi Kawabata, and Hiroshi G. Okuno
(NTT Basic Research Laboratories)

This paper presents a new computation model for sound stream
segregation based on a multi-agent paradigm.  Sound streams
are thought to play a key role in auditory scene analysis,
which provides a general framework for auditory research
including voiced speech and music.  Each agent is
dynamically allocated to a sound stream, and it segregates
the stream by focusing on consistent attributes.  Agents
interact with each other to resolve stream interference.  In
this paper, we design agents to segregate harmonic streams
and a noise stream.  The presented system can segregate all
the streams from a mixture of a male and a female voiced
speech and a background non-harmonic noise.