Effect of homolateral and contralateral routing of signals through body-worn hearing aids on the localization ability of hearing-impaired people.
This investigation compared the localization abilities in the horizontal plane of 22 hearing-impaired adults (9 with symmetrical conductive and 13 with symmetrical sensorineural hearing impairment) whilst listening to speech through body-worn hearing aids in two different ways: (a) hearing-aid microphone placed on the same side as the stimulated ear (homolateral routing of signals); (b) hearing aid microphone placed on the opposite side to the stimulated ear (contralateral routing of signals). It was found that the localization performances of all the subjects, especially when using binaural hearing aids, under homolateral routing of signals, were far superior to their respective localization performances achieved with contralateral routing of signals.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003638:Deafness; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged