Study on the applicability of instrumental measures for black-box evaluation of static feedback control in hearing aids.

Presented is a report on black-box evaluation of feedback control systems for commercial hearing aids. The aim of the study is to examine the ability of existing instrumental measures to quantify the performance of the feedback control system in black-box settings and on realistic signals, when more than one element of the signal processing chain may be active (compression, noise suppression, microphone directionality, etc.). The evaluation is carried out on 6 different hearing aids and for 10 measures. Thereby it is possible to see which measure is best suited to measuring which specific characteristic of the feedback control system, and serves as a beginning for conducting perceptual tests. The study uses static (but variable) feedback paths and is based on signals recorded from the in-ear microphone of an artificial head, on which the hearing instruments are mounted.