Example embodiments may include one or more of receiving an electrical sound emission signal from a sound controller, interrupting reception of the electrical sound emission signal, by a sound emission interruption circuit connected to a sound emitter, and receiving an electrical ambient sound signal via a sound detection circuit, based on ambient sound sensed by the sound emitter when the reception of the electrical sound emission signal is interrupted by the sound emission interruption circuit.

Airflow from a blower fan can be adjusted between a cooling air mode where cooling air flows freely to the ambient surroundings and a noise mode where the airflow is partially or fully restricted in order to produce different levels of soothing background noise. The airflow from the fan can be split or divided between varying degrees and combinations of unrestricted airflow, partially restricted airflow and fully restricted airflow to produce a wide range of cooling airflows into the ambient with or without the production of additional background noise. A perforated drum surrounds the fan to form a chamber within which airflow can resonate at various frequencies and amplify noise levels selected by rotating the drum around the fan.

Techniques are described in which sensor data is used to determine one or more of background noise or occupancy associated with a passenger cabin of a vehicle. The sensor data, in turn, is used to determine an operating state for one or more components of the vehicle (e.g., pumps, compressors, fans, blowers, etc.) such that an amount of background noise within the passenger cabin is reduced (e.g., when a passenger/occupant is present). In various examples, the operating state of the component may operate in a different, though louder, state (e.g., higher efficiency, greater power, etc.) when an occupant is not present or proximate the component.

Methods for providing a customized audio experience to a user of an audio output device are provided. A user interface is provided on a user device communicatively coupled to the audio output device, the user interface capable of accepting user input for managing the audio experience for the user. A set of activities is provided via the user interface, wherein each activity in the set invokes a set of behaviors configured for the activity for providing the customized audio experience to the user, wherein each behavior in the set customizes the audio experience for the user. A capability is provided via the user interface for the user to launch an activity from the set for invoking the set of behaviors configured for the activity to receive the customized audio experience.

Provided is a target sound extraction technique based on a steering vector generation method enabling instability in a calculation to be prevented when a neural network is trained by using an error back propagation method to reduce an estimation error of a beamformer. A target sound signal generation apparatus generates a target sound signal y.sub.t,f corresponding to a target sound included in an observed sound from an observed signal vector x.sub.t,f corresponding to the observed sound collected by using a plurality of microphones. The target sound signal generation apparatus includes a mask generation unit, a steering vector generation unit, a beamformer vector generation unit, and a target sound signal generation unit. The mask generation unit is configured as a neural network trained by using an error back propagation method. The steering vector generation unit generates a steering vector h.sub.f by determining an eigenvector corresponding to a maximum eigenvalue of a predetermined matrix generated from the observed signal vector x.sub.t,f and a mask γ.sub.t,f by using a power method.

A backrest for a vehicle seat may have a backrest part, a head restraint part and an acoustic arrangement. The acoustic arrangement is arranged above the backrest part and may have at least one central loudspeaker and at least two side loudspeakers. The central loudspeaker may be built into the head restraint part and each of the at least two side loudspeakers may be arranged on a support. A vehicle seat with the backrest is also provided.

A system and method can provide nose, such as wind noise, mitigation and/or microphone blending. Some methods may include sampling a sound signal from a plurality of microphones to generate a frame comprising a plurality of time-frequency tiles of the sound signal, each time-frequency tile including respective values of at least one feature from the plurality of microphones, comparing the respective values of the at least one feature to determine whether each time-frequency tile satisfies a similarity threshold, and flagging each time-frequency tile as noise if it fails to satisfy the similarity threshold, grouping the plurality of time-frequency tiles into sets of frequency-adjacent time-frequency tiles, and for each set of frequency-adjacent time-frequency tiles in the frame: counting a number of flagged time-frequency tiles, and attenuating all of the time-frequency tiles in the each set if the number exceeds a noise bin count threshold to thereby reduce noise in the sound signal.

Aspects of the present disclosure provide methods, apparatuses, and systems for closed-loop sleep protection and/or sleep regulation. According to an aspect, sleep disturbing noises are predicted and a biosignal parameter is measured to dynamically mask predicted disturbing environmental noises in the sleeping environment with active attenuation. Environmental noises in a sleeping environment of a subject are detected, input, or predicted based on historical data of the sleeping environment collected over a period of time. The biosignal parameter is used to determine sleep physiology of a subject. Based on the environmental noises in the sleeping environment and the determined sleep physiology, the noises are predicted to be disturbing or non-disturbing noises. For predicted disturbing noises, one or more actions are taken to regulate sleep and avoid sleep disruption by using sound masking prior to or concurrently with the occurrence of the predicted disturbing noises.

This application discloses a sound masking method and apparatus, and a terminal device. When the terminal device uses a receiver as an output end of an audio signal, the terminal device determines, based on the audio signal, a masking sound signal, and then transmits the masking sound signal by using a speaker. The masking sound signal is determined based on the audio signal, and a difference between a distance from the speaker to a far field and a distance from the receiver to the far field is small. Therefore, the masking sound signal can better mask a leaked sound of the receiver and prevent information leakage in a call sound.

Example embodiments may include one or more of receiving sound emissions signals from channels via sound emitters, controlling the sound emission signals, via relay circuits, and one of the relay circuits is configured to interrupt one of the sound emission signals associated with one of the sound emitters while the other sound emissions signals pass to the other corresponding sound emitters, and receiving, via a sound detection circuit, an electrical ambient sound signal based on ambient sound sensed by the one of the sound emitters responsive to the interrupted one of the sound emission signals.