ExpORL, KU Leuven, O&N2, Herestraat 49, Bus 721, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Int J Audiol. 2011 Mar;50(3):164-76. doi: 10.3109/14992027.2010.537376. Epub 2011 Jan 5.
The effect of different commercial hearing aids on the ability to resolve front-back confusions and on sound localization in the frontal horizontal and vertical plane was studied.
Commercial hearing aids with a microphone placed in-the-ear-canal (ITC), behind-the-ear (BTE), and in-the-pinna (ITP) were evaluated in the frontal and full horizontal plane, and in the frontal vertical plane.
A group of 13 hearing-impaired subjects evaluated the hearing aids. Nine normal-hearing listeners were used as a reference group.
Differences in sound localization in the front-back dimension were found for different hearing aids. A large inter-subject variability was found during the front-back and elevation experiments. With ITP or ITC microphones, almost all natural spectral information was preserved. One of the BTE hearing aids, which is equipped with a directional microphone configuration, generated a sufficient amount of spectral cues to allow front-back discrimination. No significant effect of hearing aids on elevation performance in the frontal vertical plane was observed. Hearing-impaired subjects reached the same performance with and without the different hearing aids. In the unaided condition, a frequency-specific audibility correction was applied. Some of the hearing-impaired listeners reached normal hearing performance with this correction.
研究不同商用助听器对前后混淆分辨能力和正面水平及垂直方向声音定位的影响。
在正面和全水平平面以及正面垂直平面上评估了麦克风置于耳道内（ITC）、耳后（BTE）和耳甲腔（ITP）的商用助听器。
一组 13 名听力受损的受试者评估了助听器。9 名正常听力的听众被用作参考组。
不同助听器在前后维度的声音定位存在差异。在前-后和高度实验中，发现受试者间的变异性很大。ITP 或 ITC 麦克风几乎保留了所有的自然频谱信息。配备方向性麦克风配置的一款 BTE 助听器产生了足够的频谱线索，可实现前后区分。在正面垂直平面上，助听器对高度性能没有显著影响。听力受损的受试者在有无不同助听器的情况下达到相同的性能。在未助听的情况下，应用了频率特异性可听度矫正。一些听力受损的听众通过这种矫正达到了正常听力的表现。
