Because hearing is a complex process that involves not only hearing sounds but processing and interpreting them, a lot of early signs of hearing loss do not involve sounds getting quieter but conversations becoming more difficult to follow.
The most common example of this is the “cocktail party problem”, where a person finds it increasingly difficult to hear a specific conversation in a noisy room, such as at a cocktail bar, a dinner party or a concert.
Whilst issues with hearing at a cocktail party can be relatively common or a symptom of an auditory processing disorder, it can also be an early sign of hearing loss, even if you do not struggle with telephone or in-person conversations otherwise in terms of volume.
However, a new system for designing and training private hearing aids could potentially solve the cocktail party issue once and for all, both for people with major hearing loss and for people who are taking advantage of a new wave of over-the-counter devices.
The Biologically-Oriented Sound Segregation Algorithm (BOSSA) as described in a study in the journal Nature, is an audio processing technology that is designed to use the cocktail party effect to separate and focus specific speech and audio.
The idea is that the technology mimics the audio processing of the brain and uses sound input cues to tune certain sounds in and other sounds out in order to help the intelligibility of speech, as well as maintain spatial cues so someone wearing a hearing aid can tell where sounds are coming from.
There have been previous technologies designed to help with parsing out sounds rather than having hearing aids act as an amplifier, but the new technology claimed in studies to improve conversational understanding by up to 40 per cent.
The research team also claim it is a low-power technology and does not require hearing aids to be radically redesigned, unlike previous attempts at the same technology which relied on multiple microphones.
The technology is still at an early stage, however, and is unlikely to reach users anytime soon. It will first require input from audiologists and doctors in order to tailor the technology to the practical needs of hearing aid users.
However, it highlights the promise of new technologies to fix a long-established but often neglected issue.
A lot of important events in people’s lives occur in noisy, loud areas with a lot of overlapping voices, and so whilst the cocktail party problem is framed as a somewhat situational issue, there are a lot of times when this can lead to missed opportunities.
Aside from missing the chance to enjoy spirited discussions at parties, the same phenomenon is also seen during workplace meetings, classrooms and other places where multiple conversations may be taking place at once.
Noise cancellation technologies such as beamformers help to a degree by highlighting sounds that come from in front of people, but there is always room for technological developments to further improve the quality of life for people managing hearing loss.
