A microprocessor-based acoustic hearing aid for the profoundly impaired listener.
We have found that the larynx-frequency pattern of speech presented as a sinusoid can be of greater communicative value to profoundly hearing-impaired people than the complete acoustic signal. The presence of higher harmonics can give poorer labelling of isolated intonation contrasts and often minimal gain in segmental spectrally-based distinctions. These observations have led to the development of a practical, body-worn, pattern-processing hearing aid that uses a microprocessor to sense the (analogue-processed) speech fundamental frequency, transform it into an appropriate amplitude and frequency region, and generate digitally the required output sinusoid. Our findings have important implications for the design of other signal-processing hearing aids in demonstrating that a simplification of speech can lead to enhanced speech receptive abilities in persons with impaired hearing.
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, University College London, England.
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Rosen
J R
JR
Walliker
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A
Fourcin
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Ball
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003638:Deafness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006316:Hearing Loss, High-Frequency / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008838:Microcomputers; D008875:Middle Aged; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012984:Software; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception