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Comparing In-ear EOG for Eye-Movement Estimation With Eye-Tracking: Accuracy, Calibration, and Speech Comprehension
Martin A Skoglund1,2, Martin Andersen3, Martha M Shiell2
1Division of Automatic Control, Department of Electrical Engineering, The Institute of Technology, Linköping University, Linkoping, Sweden.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
|July 18, 2022
Summary
This study shows in-ear electro-oculography (EOG) can estimate attended speakers in conversations, improving hearing-impaired individuals' comprehension by 10%. This visual attention estimation shows promise for hearing assistive devices.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Hearing loss affects millions, impacting communication in noisy environments.
- Current hearing aids struggle to isolate desired speech signals.
- Visual attention plays a crucial role in speech comprehension, especially for hearing-impaired individuals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate in-ear electro-oculography (EOG) for estimating attended speaker in a two-person conversation.
- To assess the impact of visual attention steering on speech comprehension in hearing-impaired participants.
- To explore the potential of in-ear EOG as a component in future hearing assistive devices.
Main Methods:
- Twenty-five hearing-impaired participants used in-ear EOG electrodes and eye-tracking glasses.
- Participants watched a dialogue video with background noise under three conditions: no steering, in-ear EOG steering, and eye-tracking steering.
- Comprehension was measured via multiple-choice questions, with attended speaker amplification by 6 dB based on eye movement detection.
Main Results:
- In-ear EOG achieved a mean accuracy of 68% in estimating the attended speaker.
- A novel calibration procedure for in-ear EOG was developed and validated.
- Speech comprehension improved by approximately 10% in both steering conditions compared to no steering.
- Better comprehension correlated significantly with more accurate attended speaker estimation using in-ear EOG.
Conclusions:
- In-ear EOG is a promising method for estimating visual attention and identifying the attended speaker.
- Steering based on visual attention significantly improves speech comprehension for hearing-impaired individuals.
- In-ear EOG technology holds potential for enhancing the functionality of hearing assistive devices.
