Music through hearing aids: Perception and modeling

Historically, the primary focus of hearing aid development has been on improving speech perception for those with hearing loss. Modern-day hearing-aid wearers, however, face many different types of acoustic signals, such as music, that require different types of processing. Music signals differ from speech signals in a variety of fundamental ways, and relevant perceptual information is conveyed via different signal attributes in the two types of signals. The research described here is an effort to improve music perception in listeners with hearing impairment. First, methods have been developed to quantitatively measure deficits in music perception for impaired and aided listeners. Second, specific perceptual features have been evaluated as to their relative importance in the successful perception of music and that information has been used to guide signal processing development. Finally, the relevant perceptual features have been modeled, and the models have been used to evaluate and compare signal processing algorithms designed to improve music perception through hearing aids. An overview of our research will be presented along with key recent results.