Frequency transposition and the effect of training

Authors

  • Ole Hau Widex A/S, Ny Vestergårdsvej 25, 3500 Værløse, Danmark
  • Petri Korhonen Widex Office of Research in Clinical Amplification (ORCA), 2300 Cabot Drive, Suite 415 Lisle, IL 60532, USA
  • Francis Kuk Widex Office of Research in Clinical Amplification (ORCA), 2300 Cabot Drive, Suite 415 Lisle, IL 60532, USA

Abstract

Linear Frequency Transposition (LFT) was introduced recently in a commercially available hearing aid. The Widex Inteo Audibility Extender shifts or transposes a high frequency sound linearly down one octave. This frequency shift can potentially increase speech intelligibility for hearing aid users with severe high frequency hearing losses. Preliminary experiments showed increased audibility of high frequency environmental sounds but little influence on speech understanding. One possible reason for this is that acclimatization or training is needed for this type of signal processing. In this study the effects of training on the identi cation of phonemes is investigated using nor- mal hearing subjects with simulated hearing loss above 1600 Hz. The subjects were tested using pre-recorded stimuli from the Inteo hearing aid both with LFT and normal amplification. The study was conducted over three sessions on separate dates. Each session included three tests separated by 15 minutes of training. The results show that training significantly increases the ability to use the transposed acoustic cues. It is shown that for both fricatives and stop consonants the identification scores with LFT improved relative to normal amplification. These results indicate that it may be important to use training to derive the optimal benefit from frequency transposition.

References

Andersen, H. (2006). ”Audibility Extender - So the “Dead” (Region) May Hear”, Integrated Signal Processing. A new standard in enhancing hearing aid performance,” Widex Inteo, 20-22.

Kuk, F., Korhonen, P., Peeters, H., Keenan, D., Jessen, A., and Andersen, H. (2006). “Linear Frequency Transposition: Extending the Audibility of High-Frequency Information,” The Hearing Review, 13(10), 42-48.

Kuk, F., Keenan, D., Peeters, H., Korhonen, P., Hau, O., and Andersen, H. (2007a). “Critical Factors in Ensuring Efficacy of Frequency Transposition Part 1: Individualizing the start frequency,” The Hearing Review, 14(3), 60-67.

Kuk, F., Keenan, D., Peeters, H., Lau, C., and Crose, B. (2007b). “Critical Factors in Ensuring Efficacy of Frequency Transposition Part 2: Facilitating Initial Adjustment,” The Hearing Review, 14(4), 90-96.

Additional Files

Published

2007-12-15

How to Cite

Hau, O., Korhonen, P., & Kuk, F. (2007). Frequency transposition and the effect of training. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 1, 491–496. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2007-48

Issue

Vol. 1 (2007): Auditory Signal Processing in Hearing Impaired Listeners

Section

2007/5. Recent concepts in cochlear-implant and hearing-aid processing

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