PP326 - Wearer and Conversation Partner Preferences with a Hearing Aid Headset Mode

Wireless streaming with hearing aids is an area of continuous growth.  One aspect that has received increased attention is improved wireless phone communication.  Hearing aids can now function as headsets, transmitting to and from phones. New innovations in hearing aid processing can impact call quality for the wearer and conversation partner.

Hearing aid wearers rated performance of a new, split-processing, headset mode.  Additionally, conversation partners rated aspects of phone calls from four different processing approaches, including split-processing. Results from the hearing aids wearers and conversation partners indicated high preferences for the hearing aid headset mode with split-processing.

Summary:

Recently, many hearing aids function as headsets streaming to and from the phone.  Hearing aid processing is a critical factor in performance.  The conversation partner also expects high quality with the streamed call. We investigated the phone streaming quality of a new split-processing strategy.  Additionally, we investigated preferences of young, normal hearing listeners receiving calls sent from a hearing aid headset mode.

The study was conducted in two parts.  In the first part, twenty experienced hearing aid users with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss were fitted bilaterally with hearing aids using split-processing and a headset mode for streaming calls from a paired phone.

Call quality was assessed by conducting short calls in four different acoustic scenarios with the test leader in another room as the conversation partner. Participants answered four questions regarding call quality on a 7-point Likert-type scale for each environment.

Ratings of the four quality questions indicated high levels of satisfaction.  For the three questions pertaining to speech clarity, speech understanding and overall satisfaction, all ratings were in the upper half of the rating scale. For the question regarding own voice, responses were more variable, likely due to a closed coupling system.

In the second part, twenty young normal-hearing students listened to pre-recorded sound samples via headphones. Sound samples were created with female speech presented to RIC hearing aids positioned on a KEMAR manikin. Two different acoustic scenarios (restaurant and traffic) were created using five loudspeakers positioned around the KEMAR manikin. With HandsFree activated, the hearing aids picked up and processed the sound signal, and streamed it to an iPhone. Via a Facetime call using a Wi-Fi network, the phone call was transmitted to another iPhone and recorded. Premium, RIC-style hearing aids from four different brands offering similar handsfree functionality were used. One brand offering split-processing was the same used in the first part of the study.

Participants were asked to rate the perceived Ease of Listening and Speech Clarity when listening to each sample. The two attributes were rated in separate trials, and each combination of hearing aid condition and background scenario was rated twice. For each noise scenario, the participant could switch between all four hearing aid conditions and rate each hearing aid by placing a slider on a continuous 0 to 100 scale with higher ratings indicating better performance.

The mean ratings for the two noisy scenarios indicated similar response patterns for the two sound attributes. For both attributes, the highest mean ratings, in both noise scenarios, were observed for the split-processing with all mean ratings 75 or higher on the 100-point scale. None of the other mean ratings exceeded 70.

Ratings were analyzed using a mixed-model ANOVA. Analysis showed a highly significant main effect of hearing aid brand (p < .00001), and Tukey HSD post-hoc tests showed that the mean rating of split-processing was significantly higher than the mean ratings for the other brands in both scenarios, and for both attributes (all p < .05).

Results ultimately suggest high preference for headset mode with split-processing.