Application scenarios for a mobile hearing aid demonstrator with headphone form factor

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Hearing aids are crucial for individuals with hearing loss.
• Effective demonstration of hearing aid benefits can improve adoption and understanding.
• Current methods for showcasing hearing aid benefits may be limited in accessibility and engagement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe application scenarios of a mobile device for showcasing potential hearing aid benefits.
• To develop a practical and user-friendly hearing aid demonstrator.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of the demonstrator in real-world settings.

Main Methods:

• Developed a prototype hearing aid demonstrator using circumaural headphones and a mobile signal processing platform.
• Included core hearing aid functions like gain presets in a hygienic, robust, and easy-to-use design.
• Compared speech intelligibility outcomes with the demonstrator and broadband level adaptations against participants' own hearing aids.
• Collected subjective assessments from participants at a public outreach event.

Main Results:

• Speech intelligibility measurements with the demonstrator better predicted typical aided speech intelligibility outcomes compared to broadband level adaptations.
• Participants at a public outreach event reported that using the demonstrator altered their expectations of hearing aid benefits.
• The demonstrator enhanced participants' understanding of how hearing aids function.

Conclusions:

• The developed mobile hearing aid demonstrator is a valuable tool for showcasing and exploring hearing aid benefits.
• The demonstrator has potential applications in clinical, public, and educational settings.
• This technology can improve public awareness and understanding of audiological interventions.