Application scenarios for a mobile hearing aid demonstrator with headphone form factor.

Objective: To describe application scenarios of a mobile device that provides a practical means for showcasing potential hearing aid benefits.

Design: A prototype of a hearing aid demonstrator based on circumaural headphones and a mobile signal processing platform was developed, providing core functions of a hearing aid, including several gain presets, in a hygienic, robust, and easy-to-use form factor. Speech intelligibility outcomes with the demonstrator and broadband level adaptations as potential fitting references were compared to outcomes with the own hearing aids of hearing-impaired participants.

Evaluation of a research hearing aid for audiological testing.

Objective: Open-source hearing aid (HA) research tools provide avenues for testing new audiological concepts. This study compared a wearable research HA (RHA) - the "Portable Hearing Laboratory" - to a high-end commercial HA (CHA) in terms of aided outcome. Using this RHA, it also evaluated a fitting approach based on non-individualised gain presets.

Reference Speech-recognition curves for a German monosyllabic test in noise: effects of loudspeaker configuration and room acoustics.

Objective: Measurement of reference speech-recognition curves for a specific speech test in typical clinical testing environments and for different loudspeaker configurations.

Design: Speech-recognition scores were measured at four signal-to-noise ratios for five loudspeaker configurations in two anechoic rooms, and in four audiometric test rooms with low reverberation times.

Study Sample: 240 young participants (aged 18-25 years) without hearing impairment participated in the measurements.

(Why) Do Transparent Hearing Devices Impair Speech Perception in Collocated Noise?

Hearing aids and other hearing devices should provide the user with a benefit, for example, compensate for effects of a hearing loss or cancel undesired sounds. However, wearing hearing devices can also have negative effects on perception, previously demonstrated mostly for spatial hearing, sound quality and the perception of the own voice. When hearing devices are set to transparency, that is, provide no gain and resemble open-ear listening as well as possible, these side effects can be studied in isolation.

[(Air-conduction) Hearing aids-indication, designs and applications : Signal processing and importance of individual fitting].

Many people in Germany and worldwide suffer from a reduced communication ability due to impaired hearing. Especially older people are affected. Hearing aids, which pick up ambient sounds, process them, and output airborne sound in the ear canal, can help in most cases.