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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Semin Hear 2021; 42(03): 206-223
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1735176
Review Article

Binaural Signal Processing in Hearing Aids

Peter Derleth
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Eleftheria Georganti
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Matthias Latzel
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Gilles Courtois
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Markus Hofbauer
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Juliane Raether
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
,
Volker Kuehnel
1   R&D, Sonova AG, Staefa, Switzerland
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

hearing aids - binaural signal processing - individual differences - directional microphone - binaural cues


Publication History

Article published online:
24 September 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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