Psychoacoustics of normal and impaired hearing and applications to hearing aid design and fitting

近年来，为听力障碍者提供的助听器的质量有了许多改善。大多数听力受损的人现在都配备了数字助听器，这种助听器提供了极大的灵活性，可以根据个人的剩余听力能力来调整声音。然而，即使是目前最好的助听器也不能恢复正常的听觉，许多助听器的使用者抱怨难以理解语言，特别是在嘈杂的情况下。我们的目标是让助听器对听力受损的人更有效地工作，他们约占英国人口的7%。我们的目标也是开发更有效地安装助听器的方法，以使每个人都能受益。

In recent years many improvements have been made in the quality of hearing aids provided to hearing-impaired people. The majority of hearing-impaired people are now being fitted with digital hearing aids that offer great flexibility for tailoring the sound to best fit the residual hearing capacity of the person. However, even the best current hearing aids do not restore auditory perception to normal, and many users of hearing aids complain of difficulty in understanding speech, especially in noisy situations. Our goal is to make hearing aids work more effectively for hearing-impaired people, who constitute approximately 7% of the population in the UK. We also aim to develop ways of fitting hearing aids more effectively, so as to optimise the benefit to each individual.