Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 30, 2026
Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Advanced beamformers for cochlear implant users: acute measurement of speech perception in challenging listening
Andreas Buechner1, Karl-Heinz Dyballa2, Phillipp Hehrmann3
1Department of Otolaryngology, Medical University Hannover, Hannover, Germany; Cluster of Excellence hearing4all, Medical University Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
Objective:
To investigate the performance of monaural and binaural beamforming technology with an additional noise reduction algorithm, in cochlear implant recipients.
Method:
This experimental study was conducted as a single subject repeated measures design within a large German cochlear implant centre. Twelve experienced users of an Advanced Bionics HiRes90K or CII implant with a Harmony speech processor were enrolled. The cochlear implant processor of each subject was connected to one of two bilaterally placed state-of-the-art hearing aids (Phonak Ambra) providing three alternative directional processing options: an omnidirectional setting, an adaptive monaural beamformer, and a binaural beamformer. A further noise reduction algorithm (ClearVoice) was applied to the signal on the cochlear implant processor itself. The speech signal was presented from 0° and speech shaped noise presented from loudspeakers placed at ±70°, ±135° and 180°. The Oldenburg sentence test was used to determine the signal-to-noise ratio at which subjects scored 50% correct.
Results:
Both the adaptive and binaural beamformer were significantly better than the omnidirectional condition (5.3 dB±1.2 dB and 7.1 dB±1.6 dB (p<0.001) respectively). The best score was achieved with the binaural beamformer in combination with the ClearVoice noise reduction algorithm, with a significant improvement in SRT of 7.9 dB±2.4 dB (p<0.001) over the omnidirectional alone condition.
Conclusions:
The study showed that the binaural beamformer implemented in the Phonak Ambra hearing aid could be used in conjunction with a Harmony speech processor to produce substantial average improvements in SRT of 7.1 dB. The monaural, adaptive beamformer provided an averaged SRT improvement of 5.3 dB.
