Beamforming and Single-Microphone Noise Reduction: Effects on Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Speech Recognition of Bimodal Cochlear Implant Users.
H Christiaan Stronks, Jeroen Briaire, Johan Frijns
PMID 35862265WHAT IT FOUND
Beamforming improved speech-in-noise scores for bimodal cochlear implant users, but the binaural option offered no significant advantage over the monaural one.
Single-microphone noise reduction provided no benefit. Fluctuating babble noise made listening significantly harder than steady noise.
Key findings
01Monaural and binaural beamformers both improved speech reception thresholds, but the difference in their effectiveness was not statistically significant.
02The single-microphone noise reduction algorithm did not produce a statistically significant improvement in speech recognition scores.
03Participants required a signal-to-noise ratio that was 6.2 dB higher to understand speech in multitalker babble compared to steady-state noise.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a homogeneous noise field, which may not fully reflect real-world listening conditions where noise often comes from specific directions. The binaural beamforming algorithm did not provide the expected speech recognition benefit despite showing superior physical signal-to-noise ratio improvements on a manikin, suggesting factors like listener effort or frequency mixing may limit clinical gains. The single-microphone noise reduction algorithm was tested at a 'medium' setting; previous research suggests benefits might only occur at the most aggressive 'high' setting.
Declared interests
The study was financially supported by Advanced Bionics, LLC, the manufacturer of the cochlear implant and hearing aid devices used in the research. The authors declared no other potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that binaural beamforming is clinically superior to monaural beamforming for bimodal users. Although physical measurements showed a larger signal-to-noise ratio improvement with binaural processing, this did not result in significantly better speech recognition scores for the participants in this study.