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research article

Objective and subjective validation of an active control approach to reduce the occlusion effect in hearing aids

Zurbrügg, Thomas Stefan
•
Stirnemann, Alfred
•
Kuster, Martin
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2015
Acta Acustica united with Acustica

The occlusion effect refers to the altered perception of one's own voice when the ear canal is fully or partially obstructed. Conventional countermeasures include the use of large vent bores or open fittings on the one hand and fittings reaching as deep as the bony part of the ear canal on the other hand. A more recent approach is the use of active control where the disturbing own-voice sounds originating from bone conduction are sensed with a microphone in the ear canal and then attenuated by means of destructive interference. This paper describes a prototype implementation of this approach along with an objective and subjective validation of the occlusion effect reduction in N = 10 normal-hearing subjects. As regards the objective evaluation, the average active occlusion reduction achieved within the two octaves from 125 Hz to 500 Hz over all subjects was Sm = -8.2 dB (+- \sigma = 2.2 dB). As regards the subjective evaluation, all subjects reported satisfaction with the naturalness of their own voice when a combination of aided sound and active control was presented. The subjective rating of this combined effect was significantly larger than the sum of the individual effects when only aided sound or only active control was presented (p<0.004). These findings indicate that active control has the potential to substantially improve the acceptance of the perception of a hearing aid user's own voice, especially when only minimal venting is applied.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.3813/AAA.918847
Web of Science ID

WOS:000353869000009

Author(s)
Zurbrügg, Thomas Stefan
Stirnemann, Alfred
Kuster, Martin
Lissek, Hervé  
Date Issued

2015

Publisher

S Hirzel Verlag

Published in
Acta Acustica united with Acustica
Volume

101

Issue

3

Start page

502

End page

509

Subjects

Hearing aids

•

Occlusion effect

•

Active control

•

Subjective evaluation

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LEMA  
Available on Infoscience
December 13, 2014
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/109344
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