Cole W A
J Otolaryngol. 1979 Feb;8(1):1-9.
Although hearing aids have shown little outward change in the past decade, the development of new components has produced a steady reduction in size and improvement in performance. The near-perfect electret condenser microphone occupies a mere 50 cubic millimeters and its low vibrational sensitivity permits close packing of components without acoustic feedback problems. The integrated circuit packs a hundred components into each cubic millimeter and has allowed the miniaturization of complex aids while simultaneously boosting performance. Integrated circuits will permit future aids to compensate distorted loudness perception as a function of frequency, and extract speech signals buried in noise. These sophisticated, computerized, hearing aids will demand new evaluation and fitting methods and it is the methodology rather than the technology that will pace their development.
尽管在过去十年里，助听器外观变化不大，但新组件的开发已使助听器尺寸稳步减小，性能不断提升。近乎完美的驻极体电容式麦克风仅占50立方毫米的空间，其低振动灵敏度使得组件可以紧密排列，而不会出现声反馈问题。集成电路每立方毫米容纳一百个组件，这使得复杂的助听器得以小型化，同时提升了性能。集成电路将使未来的助听器能够根据频率补偿失真的响度感知，并提取淹没在噪声中的语音信号。这些先进的、计算机化的助听器将需要新的评估和适配方法，推动其发展的将是方法学而非技术。
