Preparing for the full-fledged aged society, measures to prevent senility
are required. Senility is prevented by extracting signals of prescribed
bands from a speech signal using a first bandpass filter section having a
plurality of bandpass filters, extracting the envelopes of each frequency
band signal using an envelope extraction section having envelope
extractors, applying a noise source signal to a second bandpass filter
section having a plurality of bandpass filters and extracting noise
signals corresponding to the prescribed bands, multiplying the outputs
from the first bandpass filter section and the second bandpass filter
section in a multiplication section, summing up the outputs from the
multiplication section in an addition section to produce a Noise-Vocoded
Speech Sound signal, and presenting the Noise-Vocoded Speech Sound signal
for listening.