Influence of Multi-microphone Signal Enhancement Algorithms on the Acoustics and Detectability of Angular and Radial Source Movements.
Micha Lundbeck, Laura Hartog, Giso Grimm and 3 others
PMID 29900799WHAT IT FOUND
Simulated hearing aids changed older adults' ability to detect moving sounds.
A beamformer that uses both ears improved left-right detection in the group tested with interferers. Near-far detection also differed by algorithm, but no benefit appeared in the target-only group.
Key findings
01In the group tested with interferers, left-right movement thresholds were much higher for unprocessed and DIRCOH than for BEAM, and BEAM differed significantly from both.
02For the same group, near-far movement detection showed a significant effect of hearing aid condition, and BEAM and DIRCOH differed significantly from unprocessed and from each other.
03For the group tested without interferers, neither left-right nor near-far movement thresholds changed significantly across hearing aid conditions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The groups were formed after a pretest, so each group was small. The hearing aid processing was simulated, not tested in real hearing aids. Only one virtual room was used. The target always started in front of the listener. The beamformer was non-adaptive and fixed to the front. Listeners could not move their heads because no head-tracking device was used. Test-retest correlations were weak in the target-only group, and some participants were excluded to improve reliability. The two groups differed in hearing loss, and some listeners in the interferer group had done the task before. The results text reports significant differences for near-far movement but does not state which condition had lower thresholds.
Declared interests
The supplied text names funding from a DFG Cluster of Excellence and Oticon Fonden. It does not report other conflicts.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these algorithms will improve spatial hearing for all older adults with hearing loss. The effect was seen only in the group tested with interferers, and the target-only group showed no effect of hearing aid condition. The study used simulated hearing aids in one virtual room.