In everyday listening situations, aid users can train this prototype aid to provide amplification parameters that, in such situations, they prefer significantly more often than untrained parameters prescribed and adjusted in a clinic. The preference for the trained settings was not significantly affected by the training of the noise suppression strength, and was moderately but not significantly correlated with the hours of aid use during the training period. Therefore, the customization of compression parameters that is currently performed in the clinic can at least partly be performed in real life listening situations by clients who have been fitted with this trainable aid.
In a laboratory study, we found that normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners preferred less than normal overall calculated loudness (according to a loudness model of Moore & Glasberg, 1997). The current study verified those results using a research hearing aid. Fifteen hearing-impaired and eight normal-hearing participants used the hearing aid in the field and adjusted a volume control to give preferred loudness. The hearing aid logged the preferred volume control setting and the calculated loudness at that setting. The hearing-impaired participants preferred, in median, loudness levels of -14 phon re normal for input levels from 50 to 89 dB SPL. The normal-hearing participants preferred close to normal overall loudness. In subsequent laboratory tests, using the same hearing aid, both hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners preferred less than normal overall calculated loudness, and larger reductions for higher input levels In summary, the hearing-impaired listeners preferred less than normal overall calculated loudness, whereas the results for the normal-hearing listeners were inconclusive.
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