Hearing aid technology is continuing to evolve at a rapid rate as researchers work to make user listening experiences clearer and speech recognition easier. Recently, researchers in Germany created a human speech recognition model based on deep machine learning that produced some promising results.
Hearing Problems Make Speech Recognition More Difficult
Hearing loss can affect your ability to understand speech in a variety of ways. It can make it harder to:
- Hear higher-pitched voices, consonants and other high-frequency speech sounds
- Locate where voices are coming from
- Focus on a single voice when multiple people are talking at once
- Follow conversations in places with background noise, like when out to dinner with friends at Wild Sage Bistro
- Can increase feelings of mental fatigue, because your brain has to work harder to understand what’s being said. When your brain isn’t working as efficiently, it becomes harder to concentrate and engage with others.
Hearing Loss Affects Your Ability to Connect with Others
Hearing loss can make communication difficult between yourself and your loved ones. People with hearing loss often feel frustrated or embarrassed by their struggles. Whereas those close to them may feel as though they aren’t being listened to. This can create resentment on both sides and cause people with hearing loss to isolate themselves away from others.
Unfortunately, not only can isolation worsen hearing loss, it can contribute to other serious health problems like anxiety, depression and even cognitive decline and dementia.
Hearing Aid Algorithms Seek to Improve Speech Recognition
Because of the serious toll struggling to communicate can take on those with hearing loss, researchers are constantly looking to improve the ability of hearing aids to help users understand speech in all environments.
By using hearing aid algorithms, modern devices can now automatically adjust their settings based on things like volume level and background sounds to provide an optimum listening experience.
However, one issue is that current evaluation methods for these algorithms are costly and time-consuming.
Researchers in Germany aimed to speed up the process of evaluating their model by using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to calculate how many words per sentence listeners understood.
Their study consisted of eight participants with normal hearing and 20 participants with hearing loss who were exposed to a variety of complex noises that mask speech. Researchers further separated those with hearing loss into three different groups based on the severity of their condition.
The results showed their model was extremely accurate at predicting human speech recognition across all noise types and for all different degrees of hearing loss. These types of results offer promise that hearing aid algorithms will continue to improve and offer the best, most personalized listening options possible.
Make an Appointment for a Hearing Test
If you are currently dealing with signs of hearing loss, make an appointment as soon as possible for a hearing test. We are committed to offering you the best, most innovative hearing aid technology that will let you stay connected to your life and those you love.
Give Columbia Hearing Centers a call to schedule an appointment today.