Relationship between laboratory measures of directional advantage and everyday success with directional microphone hearing aids

The improvement in speech recognition in noise obtained with directional microphones compared to omnidirectional microphones is referred to as the directional advantage. Laboratory studies have revealed substantial differences in the magnitude of the directional advantage across hearing-impaired listeners. This investigation examined whether persons who were successful users of directional microphone hearing aids in everyday living tended to obtain a larger directional advantage in the test booth than persons who were unsuccessful users. Results revealed that the mean directional advantage did not differ significantly between patients who used the directional mode regularly and those who reported little or no benefit from directional microphones in daily living and, therefore, tended to leave their hearing aids set in the default omnidirectional mode. Success with directional microphone hearing aids in everyday living, therefore, cannot be reliably predicted by the magnitude of the directional advantage obtained in the clinic.     

Predicting hearing aid microphone preference in everyday listening

Seventeen hearing-impaired adults were fit with omnidirectional/directional hearing aids, which they wore during a four-week trial. For each listening situation encountered in daily living during a total of seven days, participants selected the preferred microphone mode and described the listening situation in terms of five environmental variables, using a paper and pencil form. Results indicated that hearing-impaired adults typically spend the majority of their active listening time in situations with background noise present and surrounding the listener, and the signal source located in front and relatively near. Microphone preferences were fairly evenly distributed across listening situations but differed depending on the characteristics of the listening environment. The omnidirectional mode tended to be preferred in relatively quiet listening situations or, in the presence of background noise, when the signal source was relatively far away. The directional mode tended to be preferred when background noise was present and the signal source was located in front of and relatively near the listener. Results suggest that knowing only signal location and distance and whether background noise is present or absent, omnidirectional/directional hearing aids can be set in the preferred mode in most everyday listening situations. These findings have relevance for counseling patients when to set manually switchable omnidirectional/directional hearing aids in each microphone mode, as well as for the development of automatic algorithms for selecting omnidirectional versus directional microphone processing.     

Gain and feedback problems when fitting behind-the-ear hearing aids to profoundly hearing-impaired children

Previous laboratory studies with severely and profoundly hearing-impaired persons aided with behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids have resulted in prediction rules for insertion gain and maximum gain without occurrence of acoustic feedback. The practicability of these findings was investigated in the present field trial with 21 profoundly deaf children fitted with power BTE hearing aids. In dialogue situations without background noise, the gain control settings were in accordance with the insertion gain prediction rule, whereas preferred gain may be 10 dB lower in the presence of noise. Consistent with the prediction rule for maximum gain without feedback and the gain response of the present test hearing aid, we observed oscillation in the high-frequency range in which the children had no remaining hearing. When the high-frequency gain was reduced, sufficient low-frequency gain could be provided without feedback problems.     

Characterization of non-linear distortion in hearing aids using coherence analysis. A pilot study

Coherence is a frequency-domain measure of linear dependence between input and output of a system, e.g. a hearing aid, and describes the cumulative effect of different forms of signal corruption, e.g. noise and non-linear distortion. From the coherence function, a general frequency-dependent signal-to-noise ratio can be derived. In this investigation, the applicability of this measuring technique is demonstrated in connection with non-linear distortion in hearing aids. The influence of hearing aid gain and automatic gain control is illustrated, with speech-shaped noise as input signal. For the three hearing aids tested. The gain setting influences the signal-to-noise ratio heavily due to non-linear distortion, especially near maximum gain. The introduction of automatic gain control reduces the effect of non-linear distortion somewhat at high gain settings.     

Occlusion effect of earmolds with different venting systems

In this study the occlusion effect was quantified for five types of earmolds with different venting. Nine normal-hearing listeners and ten experienced hearing aid users were provided with conventional earmolds with 1.6 and 2.4 mm circular venting, shell type earmolds with a novel vent design with equivalent cross-sectional vent areas, and nonoccluding soft silicone eartips of a commercial hearing instrument. For all venting systems, the occlusion effect was measured using a probe microphone system and subjectively rated in test and retest sessions. The results for both normal-hearing subjects and hearing aid users showed that the novel vents caused significantly less occlusion than the traditional vents. Occlusion effect associated with the soft silicone eartip was comparable to the nonoccluded ear. Test-retest reproducibility was higher for the subjective occlusion rating than for the objectively measured occlusion. Perceived occlusion revealed a closer relationship to measured occlusion in the ear in which the measured occlusion effect was higher ("high OE" ear) than in the "low OE" ear. As our results suggest that subjective judgment of occlusion is directly related to the acoustic mass of the air column in the vent, the amount of perceived occlusion may be predicted by the vent dimensions.