METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING SUPRA-THRESHOLD HEARING LOSS

摘要

A signal processing strategy in a hearing aid compensates for hidden hearing loss, i.e., diminished ability to distinguish speech in the presence of noise notwithstanding normal pure-tone response as measured by standard hearing tests. Compensation is personalized by incorporating user-specific parameters obtained based on diagnostic measurements of a user's response to auditory stimuli, referred to as the user's "temporal coding profile". Signal processing in the hearing aid includes slow-modulation enhancement to improve perception of low-frequency amplitude modulation of a speech envelope, using an envelope enhancement scheme that incorporates user-specific compensation scaling factors calculated based on user response measurements. The diagnostic measurements include an electrophysiological measurement using multiple per-band tones and calculation of envelope-following responses, which inform per-band scaling factors of the modulation-enhancement signal processing in the hearing aid.