Sona: Real-Time Multi-Target Sound Attenuation for Noise Sensitivity

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Huang, Jeremy Zhengqi, Hicks, Emani, Sidharth, Hayes, Gillian R., Jain, Dhruv
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Huang, Jeremy Zhengqi
Hicks, Emani
Sidharth
Hayes, Gillian R.
Jain, Dhruv
author_facet Huang, Jeremy Zhengqi
Hicks, Emani
Sidharth
Hayes, Gillian R.
Jain, Dhruv
contents For people with noise sensitivity, everyday soundscapes can be overwhelming. Existing tools such as active noise cancellation reduce discomfort by suppressing the entire acoustic environment, often at the cost of awareness of surrounding people and events. We present Sona, an interactive mobile system for real-time soundscape mediation that selectively attenuates bothersome sounds while preserving desired audio. Sona is built on a target-conditioned neural pipeline that supports simultaneous attenuation of multiple overlapping sound sources, overcoming the single-target limitation of prior systems. It runs in real time on-device and supports user-extensible sound classes through in-situ audio examples, without retraining. Sona is informed by a formative study with 68 noise-sensitive individuals. Through technical benchmarking and an in-situ study with 10 participants, we show that Sona achieves low-latency, multi-target attenuation suitable for live listening, and enables meaningful reductions in bothersome sounds while maintaining awareness of surroundings. These results point toward a new class of personal AI systems that support comfort and social participation by mediating real-world acoustic environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_00447
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sona: Real-Time Multi-Target Sound Attenuation for Noise Sensitivity
Huang, Jeremy Zhengqi
Hicks, Emani
Sidharth
Hayes, Gillian R.
Jain, Dhruv
Sound
Human-Computer Interaction
cs.HC
For people with noise sensitivity, everyday soundscapes can be overwhelming. Existing tools such as active noise cancellation reduce discomfort by suppressing the entire acoustic environment, often at the cost of awareness of surrounding people and events. We present Sona, an interactive mobile system for real-time soundscape mediation that selectively attenuates bothersome sounds while preserving desired audio. Sona is built on a target-conditioned neural pipeline that supports simultaneous attenuation of multiple overlapping sound sources, overcoming the single-target limitation of prior systems. It runs in real time on-device and supports user-extensible sound classes through in-situ audio examples, without retraining. Sona is informed by a formative study with 68 noise-sensitive individuals. Through technical benchmarking and an in-situ study with 10 participants, we show that Sona achieves low-latency, multi-target attenuation suitable for live listening, and enables meaningful reductions in bothersome sounds while maintaining awareness of surroundings. These results point toward a new class of personal AI systems that support comfort and social participation by mediating real-world acoustic environments.
title Sona: Real-Time Multi-Target Sound Attenuation for Noise Sensitivity
topic Sound
Human-Computer Interaction
cs.HC
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.00447