The influence of hearing-aid microphone location and room reverberation on better-ear effects

Forfattere

  • Tobias Neher Eriksholm Research Centre, Oticon A/S, Kongevejen 243, DK-3070 Snekkersten, Denmark
  • Claudia Breitsprecher Institute of Hearing Technology and Audiology, University of Applied Sciences Oldenburg, Ofener Str. 16, D-26121 Oldenburg, Germany
  • Søren Laugesen Eriksholm Research Centre, Oticon A/S, Kongevejen 243, DK-3070 Snekkersten, Denmark

Resumé

This study quantified the in uence of hearing-aid microphone location and room reverberation on so-called better-ear effects (BEEs), i.e. the ear- specific signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) changes brought about by head and pinna ltering in situations with spatially separated sound sources. Using an acoustic manikin, BEEs were measured for various target-masker constellations and for two microphone locations: above the outer ear (BTE) and at the ear-canal entrance (CIC). To determine the effects of reverberation, all measurements were made under anechoic and reverberant conditions. Compared to the CIC position, the BTE position led to substantially lower high-frequency SNRs on the side of the masker when the target was in front and the masker to the side or the rear of the manikin. Furthermore, even though BEEs were found to decrease as the ratio of reverberant to direct sound increased, considerable BEEs remained even under fairly extreme reverberant conditions. Altogether, these results demonstrate that, relative to the BTE position, hearing-aid microphones located at the ear-canal entrance are advantageous as far as head and outer-ear induced SNR changes are concerned. In addition, they indicate that BEEs of a noteworthy magnitude should be available in the reverberant listening situations experienced by typical hearing-aid users.

Referencer

Algazi V. R., Duda R. O., Thompson D. M., and Avendano C. (2001). “The CIPIC HRTF database,” IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, New Paltz, New York, Oct. 21-24.

ANSI (1997). “Methods for calculation of the speech intelligibility index,” American National Standard Institute, S3.5.

Blauert J. (1983). Spatial Hearing – The Psychophysics of Human Sound Localization (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Bronkhorst A. W., and Plomp R. (1988). “The effect of head-induced interaural time and level differences on speech intelligibility in noise,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 83, 1508-1516.

Devore S., Ihlefeld A., Shinn-Cunningham B. G., and Delgutte B. (2007). “Neural and behavioral sensitivities to azimuth degrade with distance in reverberant environments,” in Hearing – From Sensory Processing to Perception, edited by B. Kollmeier et al. (Springer Verlag Berlin), pp. 505-516.

Kidd G. Jr., Mason C. R., Brughera A., and Hartmann W. H. (2005). “The role of reverberation in release from masking due to spatial separation of sources for speech identi cation,” Acta Acust. Acust., 91, 526-536.

Mehrgardt S., and Mellert V. (1977). “Transformation characteristics of the external human ear,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 61, 1567-1576.

Wightman F. L., and Kistler D. J. (1997). “Factors affecting the relative salience of sound localization cues,” in Binaural and Spatial Hearing in Real and Virtual Environments, edited by R. H. Gilkey and T. A. Anderson (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ), pp. 1-23.

Zahorik P. (2002). “Direct-to-reverberant energy ratio sensitivity,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 2110-2117.

Yderligere filer

Publiceret

2009-12-15

Citation/Eksport

Neher, T., Breitsprecher, C., & Laugesen, S. (2009). The influence of hearing-aid microphone location and room reverberation on better-ear effects. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 2, 505–512. Hentet fra https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2009-52

Nummer

Årg. 2 (2009): Binaural Processing and Spatial Hearing

Sektion

2009/4. Recent concepts in binaural cochlear-implant and hearing-aid processing

Licens

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.