Re: Is the HA listener experiencing the same signal as the non-HA listener?

[Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps there are two different issues here. Leaving aside the interpretation of the signal for a moment, my thoughts are: does the hearing aid listener receive the same acoustical signal as the non-HA listener?

In my own experience, in a noisy environment I continuously micro-adjust my head, probably to continuously change / de-phase / noise with my outer-ear structures, as I know that the 'noise' is not point-source in nature, and is therefore susceptible to [subtle] changes of phase [de-phasing] as I move my head. I conjecture that to the HA user where the transducer sits somewhat outside the outer-ear / auditory canal 'dephasing' complex, the entire sound is point-source.

Perhaps I could simulate the effect by having a barrier, say 10 cm in diameter, with a 5 mm hole in the middle, and a tube from the hole into my auditory meatus, a kind of PZM mic for my ears. With this I would lose the de-phasing processes and maybe I would have decreased ability to segregate a point-source voice from the non-point-source noise.

¿¿


Kevin




On 2011, Aug 2, at 8:29 PM, Nedra Floyd-Pautler, LLC wrote:

> ... My initial curiosity was about whether hearing aid design could somehow use auditory illusions (or what they tell us about how the brain hears) to help the HA wearers focus their listening attention or in some other way improve the hearing experience. As I understand it, a hearing-aid wearer is more bothered by background noise than non-wearers. But why would wearing a hearing aid impact the brains ability to attenuate sound or focus attention? 
...
> 
> Again, thanks,
> Nedra Floyd-Pautler
> www.thenedra.com
>