Effects of Hearing Aid Amplification on Robust Speech Coding

助听器放大对鲁棒语音编码的影响

• 批准号: 8071119
• 负责人: Jonathan Boley
• 金额: $ 4.18万
• 依托单位: PURDUE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-01-01 至 2011-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8071119
• 关键词: Acoustic Nerve; Acoustics; Affect; Algorithms; Amplifiers; Animals; Auditory; Auditory system; Characteristics; Chinchilla (genus); Code; Data; Data Compression; Development; Device Designs; Fiber; Frequencies; Goals; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Impairment; Individual; Knowledge; Lead; Loudness; Masks; Measures; Metric; Neurons; Noise; Noise-Induced Hearing Loss; Patients; Pattern; Phase; Physiological; Population Study; Procedures; Prosthesis; Quality of life; Relative (related person); Research; Scheme; Scientist; Sensorineural Hearing Loss; Signal Transduction; Solutions; Speech; Speech Perception; Speech Sound; Stimulus; System; Techniques; Travel; Work; abstracting; base; computerized data processing; design; digital; gain of function; hearing impairment; improved; insight; neurophysiology; new technology; novel; phase change; relating to nervous system; research study; response; spatiotemporal

Abstract Hearing aids are able to restore some hearing abilities for people with auditory impairments, but background noise remains a significant problem. Unfortunately, very little is understood about how speech is encoded in the auditory system, particularly in impaired systems with prosthetic amplifiers. A better understanding of the effects of hearing aids on speech coding in noise could lead to new insights for the design of these devices. There is growing evidence that across-fiber neural coding is important for speech perception, but there is no research that relates spatiotemporal coding and hearing aid amplification. The goal of the proposed research is to characterize how hearing aids affect vowel coding in noise at the level of the auditory nerve, and to evaluate a novel hearing aid solution that is designed to enhance across- fiber coding. The strength of rate-place, temporal-place, and spatiotemporal coding schemes will be compared in quiet and in the presence of background noise. The general hypothesis guiding the proposed work is that, although current frequency-dependent gain strategies do not improve spatiotemporal coding, novel amplification techniques based on physiological phase effects can improve spatiotemporal coding. The effects of two hearing aid algorithms on vowel coding in noise (relative to normal and impaired) will be quantified: a linear hearing aid algorithm and a multichannel wide-dynamic-range compression algorithm. In addition, the ability of all-pass filters to enhance impaired spatiotemporal patterns will be evaluated. Two phase-correction algorithms are proposed: one with all-pass filters centered on the formants of a vowel, and another with all-pass filters centered on each harmonic component. The proposed neurophysiological experiments will provide valuable data about the effects of hearing aid amplification on auditory nerve coding of vowels in noise. These data will be useful for understanding the effects of amplification and designing hearing aids that allow patients to better understand speech in noise.

抽象的 助听器能够帮助有听觉障碍的人恢复部分听力，但背景噪音仍然是一个重大问题。不幸的是，人们对语音在听觉系统中是如何编码的知之甚少，特别是在带有假体放大器的受损系统中。更好地了解助听器对噪声中语音编码的影响可能会给这些设备的设计带来新的见解。越来越多的证据表明跨纤维神经编码对于语音感知很重要，但还没有研究将时空编码和助听器放大联系起来。 拟议研究的目标是表征助听器如何影响听觉神经水平噪声中的元音编码，并评估旨在增强跨纤维编码的新型助听器解决方案。将在安静和存在背景噪声的情况下比较速率位置、时间位置和时空编码方案的强度。指导所提出的工作的一般假设是，尽管当前的频率相关增益策略不能改善时空编码，但基于生理相位效应的新型放大技术可以改善时空编码。 两种助听器算法对噪声中元音编码（相对于正常和受损）的影响将被量化：线性助听器算法和多通道宽动态范围压缩算法。此外，还将评估全通滤波器增强受损时空模式的能力。提出了两种相位校正算法：一种具有以元音共振峰为中心的全通滤波器，另一种具有以每个谐波分量为中心的全通滤波器。 拟议的神经生理学实验将提供有关助听器放大对噪声中元音听觉神经编码影响的有价值的数据。这些数据将有助于了解放大效果和设计助听器，让患者更好地理解噪音中的言语。