[Measurements of directional hearing aid function].
A digitally programmable hearing aid, equipped with a directional microphone system, has been tested on 5 subjects suffering from severe sensorineural hearing loss. The hearing aids were individually fitted and two gain response curves-respectively designed for omnidirectional (OD) and directional (D) listening-where chosen and tested. The functional gain, as measured from the speech perception threshold for sentences spoken in a quiet environment, was essentially the same for both settings. The D setting revealed its advantages when listening to a frontal speech source while the background noise of a "cocktail party" was delivered from behind the subjects. The D setting permits better tolerance of background noise with a hearing aid, as demonstrated by the signal-to-noise ratio which, at parity performance (50% correct responses), proved 2 to 5 dB lower than that obtained with the OD setting.
Prosser
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Clinica ORL, Università di Ferrara.
Biasiolo
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R
D000368:Aged; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone / Q000379:methods; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006312:Hearing Loss, Bilateral / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
Misure di guadagno funzionale su protesi acustiche direzionali.