title: Design and preliminary testing of a visually guided hearing aid.
abstract: An approach to hearing aid design is described, and preliminary acoustical and perceptual measurements are reported, in which an acoustic beam-forming microphone array is coupled to an eye-glasses-mounted eye-tracker. This visually guided hearing aid (VGHA)-currently a laboratory-based prototype-senses direction of gaze using the eye tracker and an interface converts those values into control signals that steer the acoustic beam accordingly. Preliminary speech intelligibility measurements with noise and speech maskers revealed near- or better-than normal spatial release from masking with the VGHA. Although not yet a wearable prosthesis, the principle underlying the device is supported by these findings.
authors: Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and Hearing Research Center, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. gkidd@bu.edu
authors: Gerald
authors: G
authors: Kidd
authors: Sylvain
authors: S
authors: Favrot
authors: Joseph G
authors: JG
authors: Desloge
authors: Timothy M
authors: TM
authors: Streeter
authors: Christine R
authors: CR
authors: Mason
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D004867:Equipment Design; D005133:Eye Movements; D005139:Eyeglasses; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D008422:Materials Testing; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D014159:Transducers; D014796:Visual Perception