Binaural Signal Processing in Hearing Aids

• Published in: Seminars in hearing Vol. 42; no. 3; pp. 206 - 223
• Main Authors: Derleth, Peter, Georganti, Eleftheria, Latzel, Matthias, Courtois, Gilles, Hofbauer, Markus, Raether, Juliane, Kuehnel, Volker
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Thieme Medical Publishers Inc 01-08-2021; Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc
• Series: Hearing Aid Technology to Improve Speech Intelligibility in Noise
• Subjects: Audiology; Hearing aids; Hearing disorders; Intelligibility; Listening comprehension; Review; Signal processing; binaural cues; hearing aids; directional microphone; binaural signal processing; individual differences
• ISSN: 0734-0451; 1098-8955
• DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1735176

For many years, clinicians have understood the advantages of listening with two ears compared with one. In addition to improved speech intelligibility in quiet, noisy, and reverberant environments, binaural versus monaural listening improves perceived sound quality and decreases the effort listeners must expend to understand a target voice of interest or to monitor a multitude of potential target voices. For most individuals with bilateral hearing impairment, the body of evidence collected across decades of research has also found that the provision of two compared with one hearing aid yields significant benefit for the user. This article briefly summarizes the major advantages of binaural compared with monaural hearing, followed by a detailed description of the related technological advances in modern hearing aids. Aspects related to the communication and exchange of data between the left and right hearing aids are discussed together with typical algorithmic approaches implemented in modern hearing aids.