Degradation of spatial sound by the hearing aid

Authors

  • Jesper Udesen GN ReSound A/S, Ballerup, Denmark
  • Tobias Piechowiak GN ReSound A/S, Ballerup, Denmark
  • Fredrik Gran GN ReSound A/S, Ballerup, Denmark
  • Andrew B. Dittberner GN ReSound North America, Bloomington, MN, USA

Abstract

It is well known that the hearing aid distorts the spatial cues used to localize sound sources and this has severe consequences for sound localization and for listening in noise. However, it is not clear how the different components in the hearing aid contribute to the degradation of spatial sound. In this study we investigate how the spatial sound is degraded by four hearing aid components: 1) the microphone location, 2) the directionality (beamforming), 3) the compressor, 4) the real ear measurement. Head Related Transfer Functions from an artificial KEMAR head are convolved with appropriate excitation sounds and processed through the respective hearing aid algorithm. The performance metrics under investigation are: 1) interaural level difference (ILD), 2) interaural time difference (ITD), 3) monaural spectral cues. It is found that the main source for ILD degradation is the position of the microphone around the pinna which distorts the ILD by up to 30 dB. It is also found that the real ear measurement compensation severely affects the monaural spectral cues.

References

Blauert, J. (1997). Spatial Hearing: The Psychophysics of Human Sound Localization (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).

Golomb, S.W., and Gong, G. (2005). Signal Design for Good Correlation: For Wireless Communication, Cryptography, and Radar (Cambridge University Press).

Hartmann, W.M., and Wittenberg, A. (1996). “On the externalization of sound images,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 99, 3678-3688.

Hartmann, W.M. (1999). “How we localize sound,” Phys. Today, 52, 24.

Hawley, M.L., Litovsky, R.Y., and Colburn, H.S. (1999). “Speech intelligibility and localization in a multi-source environment,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 105, 3436-3448.

Van den Bogaert, T., Klasen, T.J., Moonen, M., Van Deun, L., and Wouters, J. (2006). “Horizontal localization with bilateral hearing aids: Without is better than with,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 119, 515-526.

Downloads

Published

2013-12-15

How to Cite

Udesen, J., Piechowiak, T., Gran, F., & Dittberner, A. B. (2013). Degradation of spatial sound by the hearing aid. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 4, 271–278. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2013-29

Issue

Vol. 4 (2013): Auditory Plasticity - Listening with the Brain

Section

2013/5. Design and evaluation of hearing-aid signal processing

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright* and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

*From the 2017 issue onward. The Danavox Jubilee Foundation owns the copyright of all articles published in the 1969-2015 issues. However, authors are still allowed to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.