Magnitude estimation of loudness. III: Performance of selected hearing aid users.

Aided and unaided loudness functions for narrow-band noise stimuli were obtained from hearing-impaired listeners with a magnitude estimation procedure. A comparison of aided loudness functions with those obtained from normal-hearing subjects suggests that the hearing aids did not restore normal loudness relations among the spectral components of speech stimuli. Instead, aided loudness functions tend to reflect an interaction between the abnormal loudness growth that frequently characterizes sensorineural hearing loss and the saturation characteristics of the hearing aid.