Event-Related Potentials Measured From In and Around the Ear Electrodes Integrated in a Live Hearing Device for Monitoring Sound Perception.
Florian Denk, Marleen Grzybowski, Stephan M A Ernst and 3 others
PMID 30022733WHAT IT FOUND
Electrodes around and in the ear recorded brain signals that could detect a switch in a live hearing device's settings.
The detection came from the device's own noise before the sound, not from the sound itself.
Key findings
01Brain responses to sounds and to the hearing device's own noise were clearly visible in the ear-EEG recordings.
02A switch in the hearing-device filter was detected in the EEG, but the N100 to the last sound went the opposite way from expectation; the expected deviant effect appeared when the device noise restarted before the last sound.
03Around-the-ear electrodes gave the largest signal-to-noise values, and around-the-ear and in-concha channels were largely uncorrelated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
All participants had normal hearing, so the study did not test people who use hearing devices because of hearing loss. The hearing device was a laboratory prototype, not a finished consumer hearing aid. Three of 17 subjects were excluded because their task performance did not meet the response criteria. The filter switch changed both the stimulus and the device's own noise, so the brain responses may have tracked the noise rather than the stimulus. The around-the-ear and in-concha electrodes used different technologies and attachment methods, which could affect the signal comparison. The measurements were made in a booth with headphones, not in everyday listening situations.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not report funding or conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that ear-EEG can objectively monitor what a hearing-device user hears. The participants had normal hearing, and the brain difference was driven by the device's own noise before the stimulus, not by the stimulus itself.