Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seas.gwu.edu!ajg
From: ajg@seas.gwu.edu (Alan Goldschen)
Newsgroups: comp.dsp
Subject: Re: DSP Hearing Aids?
Message-ID: <2253@sparko.gwu.edu>
Date: 20 Oct 90 20:32:14 GMT
References: <1990Oct16.163935.1954@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <33682@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <952@eplunix.UUCP> <10810@goofy.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: ajg@seas.gwu.edu ()
Organization: The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
Lines: 27

In article <10810@goofy.Apple.COM> zarko@apple.com (Zarko Draganic) writes:
>There was a neat project going on when I was in college last year (I 
>didn't get the chance to work on it). The basic idea was to apply pattern 
>recognition techniques to the input audio signal, and recognize the voiced 
>plosive phonemes (which are very troublesome in certain types of hearing 
>imparments involving large high frequency attenuations). The recognized 
>phonemes would then be substituted with "in-band" phonemes, synthesized or 
>taken from a foreign language. Gradually the user would map the new, 
>in-band phonemes to the lost voiced plosives.  Don't know how far it's 
>come or if anyone other than the U. of Waterloo is working on it; know of 
>any similar efforts?

I have heard of similar approach.  In the 70's (or 60's), one hearing aid
company designed an aid which 'mapped' frequencies that a user could not
hear into ones they could hear.  I cannot remember the name of the aid.  
I was told that the hearing aid was not comerically successful because of
problems associated with training the users to understand the newer 
frequencies.  Also, distingushing the frequencies apart was difficult.
Does anybody know more about this?  I would like to find out since the reasons
for the aids lack of commercial success would be interesting.
Thank you,
-------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Goldschen                       e-mail: ajg@seas.gwu.edu
Department of EE and CS
George Washington University
801 22nd Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20052