Preferred hearing-aid frequency responses in simulated listening environments

This study was designed to determine if an adaptive strategy could be used to select frequency/gain characteristics that would be considered appropriate across a variety of listening environments. In Experiment I, the test-retest reliability of the paired comparison procedure use in Experiment II was assessed in quiet for nine subjects and in speech noise for six subjects. For both conditions, results revealed mean standard deviations of <3 dB from 200 through 4000 H. In Experiment II, four subjects selected frequency/gain characteristics for five different listening environments (quiet, speech noise, quiet conference room, reverberant lecture hall, and reverberant lecture hall in noise). In general, subjects did not tend to select different frequency gain characteristics across the five simulated environments used in this study. When difference in frequency responses were observed, they tended to be alterations in overall gain rather than changes in relative frequency response. Findings support additional evaluation in more diverse listening environments, possibly with systems that incorporate nonlinear signal processing.