Replace The Hearing Aid With The "Understanding" Aid

Very interesting first post!

I think I am starting to grasp what you are trying to do and it seems to make sense to me. Of course there are so many questions that come to mind.

One of the most interesting would be how to sort out the differences in consonants between language. Would one algorithm apply to all languages or do you see that some dialects require a different approach?

Have you begun any algorithm development or is this still just theory?

Post Script: Adding paragraphs would make your posts a lot more readable.

Hi, Al Mond!

Thanks for a really interesting and possibly useful/rewarding hypothesis.

Sequentially, how would you propose to develop these ideas? Immediately, I'd suggest that you seriously consider filing a "Provisional Patent" at the USPTO that sketches out your ideas in the form of an invention Title and Abstract, and protects the about-to-be-developed technology for a year while you undertake the developmental work.

I'll be very willing to watch/participate as you post. I've just retired and realize that my own hearing might well be compromised in future. What you propose is a generic advancement in the field that will benefit everyone as well as --potentially-- your bank account, since EVERY maker of hearing aids is a potential licensee.

Mark

Go for it, Al. I've got one really bad ear (disease, factory work, shooting without ear protection) and I got a hearing aid with about 60 dB gain. I could hear words again! Then I went to the head and flushed; people heard me screaming all the way to Cleveland.

Geez ! Was that you screaming?

I don't use a hearing aid so I've no idea how it sounds. If I were to guess, it must be like my cellphone's recording feature.

When I record things with my cellphone, there's a lot of noise and things that I was not aware of while recording. I attribute it to the circuit's configuration.

Understandably, the designer would want to amplify every sound that gets into the microphone. Unlike a regular microphone, which you hold close to your mouth, a hearing aid needs to be more sensitive in order to pick up far off sounds. That can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage.

The human ear is a complex thing. The interaction of the pinna (the part of the ear that we can see), the ear canal and the various internal parts should be duplicated in a good hearing aid.

The ear doesn't have a flat frequency response, that is, it doesn't hear all frequencies with equal sensitivity. In some ways that helps us by cutting out or minimizing certain sounds that have no useful information. Check out the part about Contour Filters in this site http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/ph4060/p406i.html

If it were up to me, I'd try a circuit that tries to mimic the frequency response of the human ear. That would be much easier than devising an algorithm to enhance consonants.

One last thing. People have two ears. If your hearing aid is for only one ear (assuming both ears are deaf), you'll miss out on an important features like direction finding.

Hi Al. I am immersed in hear aid technology and in fact have on my bench a development system for a current DSP based semiconductor that is available for use in various forms from off the shelf algorithms to roll your own. It is hard to imagine that you can now put in your ear a piece of technology that runs five separate DSP engines that will perform 40 MIPS of 32 bit floating point math and operate on a single zinc air cell for days, but it is true. Need a 128 bin FFT and a 128 IFFT to run in real time? No problem!

So be advised that there is a tremendous amount of money that has and is being invested in the problem about which you note. One of the biggest problems is that people are not willing to wait the 30 or more days that it takes your brain to readjust to hearing sounds that you haven't heard for sometimes years. That's not to say that you may not have some good ideas that haven't been tried, but it would be worthwhile to do some research to discover what is being done and to the extent you can how. This is a very competitive market and people are very protective about their products. I am under a non-disclosure agreement just to have access to these parts and so can't tell you a lot more than I have but you can go to the Gennum website and look at the information they have. There is also another manufacturer who makes DSP parts for hearing aids, AMD I believe, that are available to license. Beyond one of these routes you are hard pressed to make a practical device as most people aren't willing to carry a laptop around as a hearing aid. There are pocket size products possible, I have one from TI that we got before Gennum released their parts but those style aids went out in the 60's I believe.

So good luck, but do try to learn as much as you can about what is already done before you spend any money!

I too have a problem that I have been researching on the internet involving a sudden hearing loss. I have found and diagnosed myself has having Monaural Diplacusis. This arises from the malady of hearing different pitches for the same tone in one ear or both. I put a tone generator on my computer and played a single tone so that I could, through earphones compare one ear to the other. I found a frequency shift of about 35hz difference one ear to the other and at around 750Hz the difference is about 110Hz(diplacusis). I one ear I hear two or three different tones as one tone is played(monaural diplacusis). I have found little development of electronics being done in this field. Amplification has more of an adverse effect than it does help as it only amplifies the problem. Overtones and resonance create a hodgepodge of noise and confuses the understanding of speech and completely destroys music. This has been one of the worst things that has happened to this old man including two heart attacks. I will be extremely interested in any progress that ya'll (Texan) come up with.

I am definitely going to watch this topic. Both of my ears check the same as to loss, -20dB at 1000 Htz falling fairly sharply to -50 at 250 Htz and -110 at 4000. Aids help but my real problem is recruitment. I only have about a 20-30 db window tracking my loss. Is there anyone who has had reasonably good results with aids and similiar hearing problems?

People with good hearing do not really understand how difficult this makes things for those of us with severe losses so I think you have the foundation required to do some good.

To add a lighter note; I have faint memories of some young man appearing on "To Tell the Truth" back in the 50's with some kind of gimmick allowing people to hear without aids. Does anyone remember and know what that was about?

Please don't give up on this!

There have been some experiments using an ultrasonic carrier modulated at audio frequencies to bypass a conduction based loss and get a signal into the cochlea through conduction. We played with it a little bit but found it was better for giving you a headache than improving hearing. I imagine if it were useful someone would offer a product by now.

A remarkable first post. I beleve I understand the direction in which you are trying to proceed and it makes sense to me. As one who is nearing the age and time when I too may require such a device I applaud someone looking closely at this issue and using engineering know how how to solve it.

Best of Luck on this one...

Geez, why didn't I think of this.. some of you might be able to help me put my patent for extending battery life into your hearing aid developments> I am looking for license buyers. I guarantee double battery life if its done with my patent method. (www.TripleBatteryLife.com althought the triple is only with flashlight bulbs). We always get double+ the miles over the road in the golf cart and also with toy trains we get double+ the laps ) . Its closer to 220% of normal milage. IN flashlights we have some LED models that run for 800 hours on just 4 alkaline D cells, amazing! and we use them all the time.

See private email for techniques you might use on your "Understanding Aid" .

Hi Al Mond,

You do not specify which country you are living in.

I have some knowledge in this field as my wife used to have her own small business in hearing aids fitting (worked with a German brand: Interton). The most important thing is to be correctly diagnosed and the real cause of your hearing loss to be determined (external, median or internal, etc.). You need to go for a test in the morning, when you are not tired, and to get an accurate audiogram. After that you need a skilled technician and a good digital hearing aid and customized shell to fit to your present needs. Most likely, you have an aging related problem, but nobody can tell from a distance.

I'll never forget the smile of satisfaction and surprise on my wife's patients faces when trying a digital hearing aid correctly fit.

As others pointed out here, there is a tremendous work and investment done in this field. All studies showed that we actually hear with our brain, the ear doing only a very little job. Brain's plasticity enable adaptation to severe hearing losses. It's also about exercise and nobody can understand speech and feel comfortable with a new hearing aid from the first minute of using it.

Despite real advances in this science and technology, most hearing centers are driven only by making money and not helping people in need. The technology is not fully understood and it's very hard to find dedicated professionals to help you out. First of all, hearing aids industry is a huge business.

I wish you the best of luck.

Michael

A very interesting post. I think you are on the right track. My hearing has declined with age. I now have difficulty with sibilance, often unable to tell the difference among words with similar beginnings and endings except in the context of the subject matter.

Someone may say to me "did you see the revisions to drawing C one zero seven two. What I might hear is "did you ee the evisions to drawing E one zero evenue".

Fortunately both of my ears do not experience the same characteristic hearing loss so I can often turn my head slightly and gain some clarity. However I suspect I will lose this slight advantage someday.

I do hope you develop your ideas as I forsee the day when I can benefit from them.

Welcome to the club. But before "celebration" of belonging to the mature set, please read my note at the end of the thread. Been there....

Something else to consider when designing and "Understanding Aid" is the db scale and it is based more on ratio's.

Two good sites:

http://physics.mtsu.edu/~wmr/log_3.htm

http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/noise_education/web/ENG_EPD_HTML/m1/intro_5.html

Maybe the real problem is lazy speech. I too have hearing loss in one ear so my SNR is way down, but the other ear hears just fine (only 5 dB down). The real problem is that a lot of people just plain mumble their way through life. Words are not pronounced like they should be. Even though my right ear passes an audiology exam with good results, I just can't understand some people's words because they do not pronounce the consonants. (My wife included and drives her crazy because she thinks I'm deaf, and I hear her, I just don't understand the words. I've taken to repeating back to her what I heard and she tries to improve the pronounciation.) I can understand some people talking to someone else all the way across a busy office but not the person right in front of me talking. Go figure.

The audiology tests do test discrimination as well as SPL (sound pressure level). My hearing loss in my left ear was due to an acoustic neuroma so hearing aids would be off little use to a good ear with a pinched off nerve.

Good luck with your project as that would be very welcome.

"...I just can't understand some people's words because they do not pronounce the consonants..."

AMEN! I have no measurable hearing loss or deficiency, yet I often have trouble making out what (at least some) people are saying, even with multiple repeats. In particular, I'll realize they are saying words, not just making noises, about three or four words into their speech, and have to stop them and ask them to start over. That saves some time, but I always feel rude interrupting. Then I feel worse if I let them ramble on. Damned if I do or don't, damnit!

Hello and thank you for your interest in hearing aids, with your thoughts and the thoughts of many others like you maybe one day I will be able to hear my kids say I love you or hear them scream for help.

I began to loose my hearing when i was very young possibly at birth, I am now legally deaf my left is is 100% gone and the right is 80% gone. I can only understand single sounds like when I am talking to someone alone in a very quiet room. I can't hear a baby cry or the voices of young kids or most women. when I watch tv I have to have it so loud then I cant distinguish voices from the music. I have had many hearing aids over the years and most of them made it to the top drawer only after I had to up grade to a new one. I forced my brain to recognize the new and very strange sounds, one of the problems I had was learning what the new sound was. I learned that most of what I was hearing was of no real value to me, just a bunch of junk, kinda like the old fashion white snow on the tv set. in any case what I have come to realize is that until the day comes that we can absolutly mimic the human ear, those suffering from hearing loss will be at a loss. To add a little humor to all of this, I can't hear the phone ring, I have never heard an alarm clock, I know what makes a marriage successful, my reading comprehension has improved.

To all of those who have good hearing folks like myself don't misunderstand we mis hear and it is up to you to make sure that we hear what you are saying not ours.

Dave

This thread is a classic for professionally blinkered one. Please do not discard my note, as I am one of you.

I am one of you, as I have been there myself. Not quite as bad, but nonetheless. You and I as humans are biochemical devices. Hearing aids are, at best needed band-aid. It is a naughty aspect of the hearing loss, that it creeps upon you while you are

unaware and explain away the gradual onset.

Well, applying the KISS principle, lets do the simple thing first. I did it twice, and worked both time. Remember KISS. As you age, the wax in your ear gets thicker, and do not discharge well. Washing it out professionally is a cheap relief for you. You would not believe the return of the hearing of the high ranges until you try it. Wonderful!

The next thing is to consider is the bloodflow in the fine capillaries for your ears. If that, and the oxygen it supplies is in short supply, the nerves are undernourished, and do not perform up to par. From my studies I know two herbs only: gotu cola and gingko biloba to get marked improvement in that. By (extensive anecdotal) experience they work. I would consider a digital earpiece only 6 months or so later.

Since so many of us are concerned with retaining hearing, I consider this very much on-topic on the subject (grin) even if the suggested solution is out of the box.