|
Active Research
Auditory Modeling of Suprathreshold Distortion in Persons with Impaired Hearing
Principal Investigators: Brian Walden, Ph.D., Marjorie Leek, Ph.D., Kenneth Grant, Ph.D.
Objective: Current hearing aids can compensate for the loss of sensitivity, but they are limited in their ability to address suprathreshold forms of distortion. Greater use of amplification may depend upon the development of signal processing algorithms that restore more normal suprathreshold auditory function. This work is a precursor to the development of effective “reverse engineering” approaches to restoring more normal suprathreshold auditory function in persons with impaired hearing; that is, signal processing strategies that alter incoming auditory signals in such a way that, after processing by the impaired auditory system, more normal neural input to the brain is achieved. Recent computer-based auditory processing models that provide visual and mathematical representations of auditory input at various stages of neural processing will be used. The adequacy of these representations will be evaluated for their ability to predict behavioral measures of auditory and auditory-visual speech recognition in individual patients.
Background: Less than 60% of current hearing aid wearers are satisfied with their instruments. Although hearing aids have improved significantly over many years, they still do not restore “normal” hearing, and often do a rather poor job of providing benefit to patients in a noisy environment. Significant improvements in hearing aids might be possible if the stages of processing carried out by a normal auditory system can be restored to a listener by preprocessing a sound stimulus to compensate for the individual deficits identified in a given listener. Individualized models can lead to better speech recognition in noise, potentially providing improvements in the individual fitting and customized signal processing for each individual hearing-aid wearer. This in turn should lead to greater benefits from the hearing aids.
Findings: This grant has just started and there are no findings to date.
|
