Modeling the Intelligibility Benefit of Active Noise Cancelation in Hearing Devices That Improve Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

No human listeners were tested, so the results are modelled intelligibility metric differences, not measured speech understanding. The background noise was stationary speech-shaped noise, so real-world noises such as bass-heavy aircraft cabin noise or loud background music were not tested. The model assumed the same signal-to-noise ratio at the input to the direct and amplified paths, while real environments have different spatial relationships. The active noise cancelation filters were hypothetical, and the paper did not test actual products or all ear-tip venting options. HASPIv2 saturates at high signal-to-noise ratios, and eSTOI does not model hearing loss, so the two metrics can disagree across hearing-loss severity. The study tested only standard sloping hearing losses from very mild to severe, not other audiogram shapes. All authors are current or past employees of Bose Corporation, which is named as a maker of devices with active noise cancelation.

All authors are current or past employees of Bose Corporation. The paper states the authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.

Do not conclude that active noise cancelation has been shown to improve speech understanding in patients. The paper reports simulated metric gains only, and no human perception test was performed.