Article
Self-adjustment of Hearing Aids using an individualized Meta-parameter Space (en)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Self-adjustment is one approach to stronger involve the user in the process of hearing aid fitting. This requires a procedure where the setting of complex parameters, e.g., frequency-dependent gain and compression, can be chosen without expert knowledge. In this study the suitability of a parameter-space that uses two basically orthogonal meta-parameters is evaluated experimentally. One meta-parameter changes the general gain and compression setting compensating different degrees of hearing loss according to an audiogram-based profile. The other meta-parameter applies a sound-balance varying high- and low-frequency gain thus accommodating personal traits. Models were applied to ensure a certain speech intelligibility and also to limit the loudness to acceptable values. In the experiment, a test and a retest session was performed with hearing impaired listeners who had to choose a preferred setting from the parameter space providing more than 20 options in. The choices of settings are analyzed in terms of test-retest reliability and variation across subjects with a similar hearing loss. Our hypothesis indicates that a profile- and model-based parametrization of the fitting parameter space with appropriate meta-parameters is advantageous in comparison to conventional fitting methods that are restricted to adjusting only one parameter at a time.