Using speech intelligibility metrics to predict the performance of hearing-impaired listeners

Abstract

When fitting a hearing aid to a hearing-impaired listener, it would be very beneficial for an audiologist to be able to use an objective metric to determine the best signal processing algorithm to compensate for the user’s loss and improve the user’s understanding of speech in degraded acoustic environments. Several metrics have been considered to predict impaired listeners’ speech recognition, including modified versions of the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) [e.g., Ricketts, Ear Hear. 17, 124–132 (1996)] and the Speech Transmission Index (STI) [e.g., Humes et al., J. Speech Hear. Res. 29, 447–462 (1986)]. For impaired listeners using linear amplification hearing aids, there are metrics that work fairly well. For listeners using hearing aids that include nonlinear processing, such as amplitude compression, results have not been as successful. This talk will review the current status of metric capabilities, approaches that have been proposed to mitigate metric limitations and which metric features appe...