Use of supplemental/Substitutive Aids for Hearing-Impaired

人工听觉，如对听觉神经的电刺激和通过皮肤表面的触觉进行机械刺激，为深度听力障碍者提供了利用语音的可能性。20多年来，尽管全球用户数量快速增长，但其设备在功能方面的进一步改进并没有取得比预期更大的进展，但为了研究这种改进，有必要通过所提出的人工听力设备收集详细的言语感知能力评估实验数据。由于这样的实验需要对设备的信息灵通的用户进行长期的全面观察，因此只有在有能力的研究机构中才能获得可靠的数据。最重要的是，这种罕见的实验是用受试者不同语言的语音进行的，结果不能相互直接比较。为了解决这一严重问题，世界上最活跃的人工听力研究开发的瑞典、奥地利、英国、美国、澳大利亚和日本的研究人员加入了这个项目的研究小组，并通过两年来对口国家与日本的互访，探讨了评估方法在国际上标准化的可能性。作为结果，形成了不同语言评估实验结果相互转换的新策略。在详细分析人工听力设备中语音处理机制特点的基础上，提出了通过人工听力建立通用的语音感知能力评价标准的可能性。

Artificial hearing, such as electrical stimulation of auditory nerves and mechanical stimulation through the tactile sensation on skin surface, introduced a possibility of utilizing speech sound to profoundly hearing -impaired people. While the numbers of users increasing rapidly in the world for more than twenty years, further improvement on functional aspects of their devices had not made progress than expected.For the research on this improvement, however, it is necessary to gather the data of detailed evaluation experiments on speech perception ability through the proposed artificial hearing devices. As such experiments require comprehensive observation of informative users of the devices over a long period, the reliable data can be obtained only in the capable research organizations. Above all, such rare experiments are being done with speech in different language of the subjects, so that the results can not be compared directly among each other.In order to overcome this serious problem, researchers in Sweden, Austria, United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Japan, who have been most active in research and development of the artificial hearing in the world, have joined in a research group in this program, and possibility of standardizing evaluation method internationally has been investigated through the exchange visits between counterpart countries and Japan during these two years period.As the results, a new strategy of converting the results of evaluation experiments in different language mutually has been derived, based on the detailed analysis of characteristics of speech processing mechanism in the artificial hearing devices, and it has been shown to be possible to settle common evaluation criteria for speech perception ability through the artificial hearing.