2022/06/30 | Media | Artificial Intelligence
Wilhelm Wimmer interviewed by dezibel
In noisy surroundings hearing aid users face difficulties in understanding conversation. Wilhelm Wimmer from the Hearing Research Lab (HRL) explains to the magazine dezibel (pro audito) how artificial intelligence can compute an additional virtual microphone that helped 20 participants of a pilot study to significantly improve speech comprehension in so-called "cocktail party" scenarios. The HRL team used a dataset of more than 55 000 acoustic scenarios created at the lab (Bern Cocktail Party Dataset).
Hearing aids and implants typically use two microphones in close proximity to help users filter out background noises and direct attention to a conversation. Adding a third virtual microphone, estimated by a neural network as placed on the forehead, can significantly improve this effect for hearing aid and cochlear implant users in “cocktail party” scenarios.
(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2021.108294 © ARTORG Center)
