Deep Learning Reinvents the Hearing Aid
From: IEEE Spectrum - 12/06/2016
By: Deliang Wang

Finally, wearers of hearing aids can pick out a voice in a crowded room

Less than 25 percent of people who need a hearing aid actually use one. The
greatest frustration among potential users is that a hearing aid cannot
distinguish between, for example, a voice and the sound of a passing car if
those sounds occur at the same time. The device cranks up the volume on both,
creating an incoherent din.

It's time we solve this problem. To produce a better experience for hearing
aid wearers, my lab at Ohio State University, in Columbus, recently applied
machine learning based on deep neural networks to the task of segregating
sounds. We have tested multiple versions of a digital filter that not only
amplifies sound but can also isolate speech from background noise and
automatically adjust the volumes of each separately.

Read the entire article at:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/deep-learning-reinvents-the-hearing-aid

Also on this webpage: Hearing Aids through the Years

Link:
Perception and Neurodynamics Laboratory (PNL)
http://web.cse.ohio-state.edu/~dwang/pnl