Understanding Variability in Individual Response to Hearing Aid Signal Processing in Wearable Hearing Aids

Abstract

Objectives. Previous work has suggested that individual characteristics, including amount of hearing loss, age, and working memory ability, may affect response to hearing aid signal processing. The present study aims to extend work using metrics to quantify cumulative signal modifications under simulated conditions to real hearing aids worn in everyday listening environments. Specifically, the goal was to determine whether individual factors such as working memory, age, and degree of hearing loss play a role in explaining how listeners respond to signal modifications caused by signal processing in real hearing aids, worn in the listener's everyday environment, over a period of time.Design. Participants were older adults (age range 54-90 years) with symmetrical mild-tomoderate sensorineural hearing loss. We contrasted two distinct hearing aid fittings: one designated as mild signal processing and one as strong signal processing. Forty-nine older adults were enrolled in the study and thirty-five participants had valid outcome data for both hearing aid fittings. The difference between the two settings related to the wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) and frequency compression features. Order of fittings was randomly assigned for each participant. Each fitting was worn in the listener's everyday environments for approximately five weeks prior to outcome measurements. The trial was double blind, with neither the participant nor the tester aware of the specific fitting at the time of the outcome testing. Baseline measures included a full audiometric evaluation as well as working memory and spectral and temporal resolution. The outcome was aided speech recognition in noise. Individual response to signal processing 4Results. The two hearing aid fittings resulted in different amounts of signal modification, with significantly less modification for the mild signal processing fitting. The effect of signal processing on speech intelligibility depended on an individual's age, working memory capacity, and degree of hearing loss. Adults who were older demonstrated progressively poorer speech recognition at high levels of signal modification. Working memory interacted with signal processing, with individuals with lower working memory demonstrating low speech intelligibility in noise with both processing conditions, and individuals with higher working memory demonstrating better speech intelligibility in noise with the mild signal processing fitting. Amount of hearing loss interacted with signal processing, but the effects were very small. Individual spectral and temporal resolution did not contribute significantly to the variance in the speech intelligibility score.Conclusions. When the consequences of a specific set of hearing aid signal processing characteristics were quantified in terms of overall signal modification, there was a relationship between participant characteristics and recognition of speech at different levels of signal modification. Because the hearing aid fittings used were constrained to specific fitting pa...

Robust data-driven auditory profiling towards precision audiology

“…Overall, the participants of the present study would be candidates for hearing aids. Hearing-aid users often show a large variability in terms of benefit and preference to specific forms of hearing-aid processing (Neher et al 2016; Picou et al 2015; Souza et al 2019). In some studies, the HI listeners were stratified based on their audiograms (Gatehouse et al 2006; Keidser et al 1995; Keidser and Grant 2001; Larson et al 2002).…”

“…al., 2016; Picou et al, 2015; Smeds et 599 al., 2006;Souza et al, 2019). In some studies, the HI listeners were stratified based on their 600 audiograms(Gatehouse et al, 2006; Keidser et al, 1995; Keidser & Grant, 2001; Larson 601 et al, 2002).…”

Investigating the Effects of Four Auditory Profiles on Speech Recognition, Overall Quality, and Noise Annoyance With Simulated Hearing-Aid Processing Strategies

“…Individuals with a hearing loss suffer not only from reduced audibility but also from suprathreshold hearing deficits such as impaired binaural, spectral, and temporal processing ( Houtgast & Festen, 2008 ; Johannesen et al., 2016 ; Plomp, 1978 ; Santurette & Dau, 2007 ; Strelcyk & Dau, 2009 ). A number of studies have reported associations between temporal processing abilities and aided speech-in-noise performance ( Lopez-Poveda et al., 2017 ; Souza et al., 2019 ), preference for different compression settings ( Moore & Sęk, 2016 ), or prefitting hearing outcome ( Perez et al., 2014 ). Moreover, binaural hearing abilities have been linked to benefit from different beamforming schemes ( Neher et al., 2017 ).…”

The use of self-report measures to examine changes in perception in response to fittings using different signal processing parameters

“…Full details regarding the clinical trial design can be found in Souza et al (2018). Briefly, this trial was a double-blinded randomized crossover design.…”