title: A model to evaluate and maximize hearing aid performance by integrating the articulation index across listening conditions.
abstract: A method for integrating the articulation index (AI) across listening conditions was developed and applied to a preliminary model for evaluating and optimizing prescriptions of hearing aid characteristics. The model takes hearing threshold, masking of noise, self-masking of speech, high level cochlear distortion, and the peak-clipping effects of a hearing aid into account. The integrated AI (IAI) across a range of listening conditions is used as a criterion for evaluating a specific hearing aid response characteristic and calculating an optimal frequency-gain characteristic that maximizes the IAI. For a high-frequency hearing loss, the frequency-gain characteristics and IAI's derived from an optimal IAI (OIAI), POGO, and NAL prescriptions are compared for two of listening situations: a quiet setting and a setting with a signal-to-noise ratio of -3 dB. The results predict that, in quiet, the OIAI prescription is not significantly different from the well-established prescriptive procedures such as the POGO and the NAL. For the noise condition, however, the optimal IAI model is predicted to be better in terms of speech intelligibility.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Boston.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Thornton
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001302:Audiometry, Speech / Q000592:standards; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D013067:Speech Perception