摘要 :
Objectives: Normalizing perceived loudness is an important rationale for gain adjustments in hearing aids. It has been demonstrated that gains required for restoring normal loudness perception for monaural narrowband signals can l...
展开
Objectives: Normalizing perceived loudness is an important rationale for gain adjustments in hearing aids. It has been demonstrated that gains required for restoring normal loudness perception for monaural narrowband signals can lead to higher-than-normal loudness in listeners with hearing loss, particularly for binaural broadband presentation. The present study presents a binaural bandwidth-adaptive dynamic compressor (BBDC) that can apply different gains for narrow- and broadband signals. It was hypothesized that normal perceived loudness for a broad variety of signals could be restored for listeners with mild to moderate high-frequency hearing loss by applying individual signal-dependent gain corrections.
收起
摘要 :
Objective Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in spatial scenarios were measured in simulated cochlear implant (CI) listeners with either contralateral normal hearing, or aided hearing impairment (bimodal), and compared to SRTs of ...
展开
Objective Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) in spatial scenarios were measured in simulated cochlear implant (CI) listeners with either contralateral normal hearing, or aided hearing impairment (bimodal), and compared to SRTs of real patients, who were measured using the exact same paradigm, to assess goodness of simulation. Design CI listening was simulated using a vocoder incorporating actual CI signal processing and physiologic details of electric stimulation on one side. Unprocessed signals or simulation of aided moderate or profound hearing impairment was used contralaterally. Three spatial speech-in-noise scenarios were tested using virtual acoustics to assess spatial release from masking (SRM) and combined benefit. Study sample Eleven normal-hearing listeners participated in the experiment. Results For contralateral normal and aided moderately impaired hearing, bilaterally assessed SRTs were not statistically different from unilateral SRTs of the better ear, indicating "better-ear-listening". Combined benefit was only found for contralateral profound impaired hearing. As in patients, SRM was highest for contralateral normal hearing and decreased systematically with more severe simulated impairment. Comparison to actual patients showed good reproduction of SRTs, SRM, and better-ear-listening. Conclusions The simulations reproduced better-ear-listening as in patients and suggest that combined benefit in spatial scenes predominantly occurs when both ears show poor speech-in-noise performance.
收起
摘要 :
Sensorineural hearing loss typically results in a steepened loudness function and a reduced dynamic range from elevated thresholds to uncomfortably loud levels for narrowband and broadband signals. Restoring narrowband loudness pe...
展开
Sensorineural hearing loss typically results in a steepened loudness function and a reduced dynamic range from elevated thresholds to uncomfortably loud levels for narrowband and broadband signals. Restoring narrowband loudness perception for hearing-impaired (HI) listeners can lead to overly loud perception of broadband signals and it is unclear how binaural presentation affects loudness perception in this case. Here, loudness perception quantified by categorical loudness scaling for nine normal-hearing (NH) and ten HI listeners was compared for signals with different bandwidth and different spectral shape in monaural and in binaural conditions. For the HI listeners, frequency- and level-dependent amplification was used to match the narrowband monaural loudness functions of the NH listeners. The average loudness functions for NH and HI listeners showed good agreement for monaural broadband signals. However, HI listeners showed substantially greater loudness for binaural broadband signals than NH listeners: on average a 14.1 dB lower level was required to reach "very loud" (range 30.8 to -3.7 dB). Overall, with narrowband loudness compensation, a given binaural loudness for broadband signals above "medium loud" was reached at systematically lower levels for HI than for NH listeners. Such increased binaural loudness summation was not found for loudness categories below "medium loud" or for narrowband signals. Large individual variations in the increased loudness summation were observed and could not be explained by the audiogram or the narrowband loudness functions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
收起
摘要 :
Objective: Loudness perception of binaural broadband signals, e.g. speech shaped noise, shows large individual differences using frequency-dependent amplification which was adjusted to restore the loudness perception of monaural n...
展开
Objective: Loudness perception of binaural broadband signals, e.g. speech shaped noise, shows large individual differences using frequency-dependent amplification which was adjusted to restore the loudness perception of monaural narrowband signals in hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. To better understand and quantify this highly individual effect, loudness perception of broadband stimuli consisting of a number of spectrally separated narrowband components which where individually adjusted to equal loudness is of interest. Design: Based on categorical loudness scaling, the loudness of an equal categorical loudness noise (ECLN) consisting of six third-octave noises was assessed. For loudness categories medium und very loud the required narrowband loudness was analysed. Study sample: Nine normal-hearing (NH) and ten HI listeners. Results: HI listeners showed lower narrowband loudness values compared to NH listeners, indicating an increased spectral loudness summation. More than 50% of the HI listeners showed higher binaural spectral loudness summation compared to NH listeners. The amount of binaural spectral loudness summation was highly correlated (r(2)=0.92) with the loudness level at very loud of aided speech shaped noise. Conclusions: The suggested ECLN measurement is suited to assess individual (binaural) broadband loudness in aided conditions, providing valuable information for hearing-aid fitting.
收起
原文获取