Fuzzy clustering evaluation of time-frequency distribution (TFD) schemes for audio stream segregation

Audio stream segregation is a task performed constantly by the human auditory system, yet is difficult to reproduce with a computer. The research detailed in this paper looks at performing just one method of stream segregation - the temporal coherence boundary - using a fuzzy clustering system. The main focus of the paper is on examining the effectiveness of several time-frequency distributions as the feature vectors for the system. Three time-frequency distributions are examined and their effectiveness evaluated in terms of correct separation and computational complexity. The main evaluation compares the popular gamma-tone filter bank with the MPEG-7 audio spectrum envelope. The results are promising, indicating that the less computationally expensive MPEG-7 descriptor performs well, implying that stream segregation may be possible using the MPEG-7 audio low-level description scheme.