Workshop on the Auditory Basis of Speech Perception Keele University, UK July 15-19, 1996

Binaural Processing for Hearing Aids

Douglas R. Campbell

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Paisley, Paisley, Scotland, UK

The practical ineffectiveness of hearing aids in noisy reverberant surroundings remains a frequent source of complaint and discomfort. Given the current capabilities and pace of development in microelectronics, the major problem is to find successful speech enhancement schemes. Binaural unmasking experiments demonstrate that binaural correlation properties can lower the hearing threshold in noise and there is evidence that this may operate in frequency subbands. The main enhancement advantage of binaural hearing may be in the ability to perform binaural unmasking. The performance is presented of an adaptive noise cancellation scheme which supports the possibility of performing "binaural unmasking" outwith the body, and is shown to be capable of out-performing a standard noise-cancellation scheme in the presence of reverberation.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Campbell, Douglas R. (1996): "Binaural processing for hearing aids", In ABSP-1996, 253-256.