Hearing aids can be lifelines for people with hearing loss. But their limitations can mean that, in particularly noisy environments, users cannot exploit the best of the existing technology. Most new hearing aid designs just make small improvements to microphones, power efficiency, and noise filtering. We propose an entirely new approach.
My colleagues and I are working as part of a multidisciplinary team led by Stirling University, which includes a psychologist and a clinical scientist and is supported by a hearing aid manufacturer. Our aim is to develop an audiovisual hearing aid for the 21st century, taking inspiration from the way that the human body naturally deals with noisy situations, something often known as the cocktail party effect.
Imagine a scenario such as a very busy party with lots of noise, music, and people talking. Despite this overwhelming environment, a person with full hearing is often able to pick out and listen to the voice of someone next to them. This is something that people with hearing aids often find extremely challenging. In fact, in really busy environments many deaf people may prefer to remove their hearing aids altogether.
Dealing With Noisy Environments
The answer to why it is so difficult for hearing aids to deal with these situations is complicated. It’s partly down to the limitations of directional microphones, of inadequate noise cancelling, and of the loss of information about where sound is coming from. But the reason why deaf people can often “hear” better in overwhelming environments like this can be partly explained by lip reading.
