• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1994.06a
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• pp.796-801
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• 1994

Measuring noise, sound quality or acoustical comfort presents a difficult task for the acoustic engineer. Sound and noise are ultimately jugded by human beings acting as analysers. Regulations for determining noise levels are based on A-weighted SPL measurement performed with only one microphone. This method of measurement is usually specified when determining whether the ear can be physically damaged. Such a simple measurement procedure is not able to determine annoyance of sound events or sound quality in general. For some years investigations with binaural measurement analysis technique have shown new possibilities for the objective determination of sound quality. By using Artificial Head technology /1/, /2/ in conjunction with psychoacoustic evaluation algorithms - and taking into account binaural signal processing of human hearing, considerable progress regarding the analysis of sounds has been made. Because sound events often arise in a complex way, direct conclusions about components subjectively judged to be annoying with regard to their causes and transmission paths, can be drawn in a limited way only. A new procedure, complementing binaural measurement technology combined with mulit-channel measuements of acceleration sensor signals has been developed. This involves correlating signals influencing sound quality, analyzed by means of human hearing, with signals form different acceleration sensors fixed at different positions of the sound source. Now it is possible to recognize the source and the transmission way of those signals which have an influence on the annoyance of sound.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 2004

Hearing aids play an very important role in aural rehabilitation for hearing impaired person who could not be medically treated. Especially, hearing aids with dynamic range compression (level dependent frequency response: LDFR) method concentrated dynamic output range of receiver into the narrowing dynamic range of sensorineural hearing impaired person. Thus, if aided hearing threshold level is improved and uncomfortable loudness level rises, then the users of hearing aids are favored with extended dynamic range. This study aims to evaluate audiological benefits in dynamic range compression hearing aids. To achieve this, pure tone and speech audiometry were examined to 15 children and 3 adults with narrow dynamic range moderate-to-severe binaural sensorineural hearing loss.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1978.06a
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• pp.9.2-9
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• 1978

Monaural and binaural hearing aid performance under quiet and noisy conditions were compared in regard to (1) the degree of hearing impairment, (2) the symmetry of pure tone audiogram, (3) the automatic gain control of the hearing aid. (4) hearing impairement with recruitment and, word discrimination ability. Performance using binaural hearing aids was consistently superior to that using monaural hearing aids. The results were as follows. 1. Speech detection thresholds were enhanced by a mean of 4.25dB when tested with danavox 747 PP stereo type hearing aid and by a mean of 4.12 dB when tested hearing aids connected seperately to the right and left ears. 2. Binaurally tested speech reception thresholds were superior to monaurally tested thresholds by a mean of 3.56dB when tested in quiet and by a mean of 5.56dB when tested in noise. 3. Binaurally tested word discrimination scores were also superior by a mean of 17.09% in quiet and by a mean 19.63% in noise. 4. Both SRT and word discrimination scores were performed best by subjects with moderately-severe impairement. The performance by one mildly impaired subject was the poorest of all performances. The levels of performance order were; moderately-severe loss, severe loss. moderate loss and mild loss. 5. The data obtained using AGC aids when compaired with that of linear amplification show that when AGC aids were worn in both ears. the results were very poor but when one AGC aid was worn in one ear and linear amplification in the other. the results were good. 6. The advantages of binaural hearing aids were obvious even in cases 1) with great diferences in hearing thresholds between right and left ears, 2) when the subject was unable to discriminate words without vision and. 3) when the subject had extreme recruitme t phenomenon.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.108-113
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• 2022

Speech recognition in noise situation is an important skill for effective communication. Hearing In Noise Test (HINT) has been suggested as a clinical tool to evaluate these aspects. However, this tool has not been used widely in domestic clinics. In this study, psychophysical aspects of HINT and burdens in clinical application were analyzed to improve the applicability of the tool. The difficulty in understanding speech in the elderly population is due to hearing loss based on aging of peripheral and central auditory pathways. As typical clinical cases, HINT scores for young and elderly listeners (20s vs 70s) were compared. Four conditions of HINT test were Quiet (Q), Noise Front (NF), Noise Right (NR), and Noise Left (NL). Quantitative scores showed that the elderly listener required more Signal to Noris Ratio (SNR) values than the younger counterpart in noisy situations. Although both showed Binaural Masking Level Difference (BMLD) effect, the strength was smaller in the elder. However, the age-matched normalized data were not established in detail for clinical application. Confirmed usefulness of HINT and the related improvement in clinical measuring procedure were suggested.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.7C
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• pp.413-420
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• 2011

This paper proposes a new adaptive algorithm to cancel the acoustic feedback and noise signals in the binaural hearing aids. The convergence performances of the proposed algorithm are improved by updating coefficients of the feedback canceller after the speech signal is cancelled from the residual signal with dual microphones. The feedback canceller firstly cancels the feedback signal from the microphone signal, and then the noise canceller reduces the noise by the beamforming method. To assure that binaural hearing aids converge stably, the left-sided hearing aid only is converged firstly, next the right-sided hearing aid only is converged. To verify performances of the proposed algorithm, simulations were carried out for a speech. As the results of simulations, it was proved that we can advance 14.43dB SFR(Signal to Feedback Ratio) on the average for the feedback canceller, 10.19dB SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) improvement on the average for the noise canceller, in case that this algorithm is used.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1E
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• pp.8-13
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• 2007

It has long been known that high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (HFHL) can contribute to difficulty in speech understanding by elderly listeners. This study evaluated the relative contribution of HFHL and age to speech understanding. Subjects included adult middle-aged and old groups with normal hearing or with limited HFHL. The Hearing-in-Noise-Test (HINT) was used to measure speech perception performance in quiet and in noise. The middle-aged groups showed significant effects of HFHL for speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise, but the old groups showed the difference in quiet only due to high frequency hearing. The results suggest that HFHL may affect speech intelligibility differently with age and therefore hearing aid selection needs to take into account the influence of age.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.1317-1326
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• 2018

A common treatment for tinnitus rehabilitation is to use a device called a sound generator to continuously supplying the sound stimuli. The devices usually provides a sound called white noise, or pink noise, which are common in nature. In this paper, we developed a mobile system for tinnitus diagnostics and therapy using Android mobile applications. The first step for tinnitus diagnostics is detecting an exact tinnitus frequency of the patients, therefore we provide a bark scale tinnitus detection algorithm for fast and accurate diagnostics. Also, the system can provide various stimuli sounds including white noise, pink noise, brown noise, nature sounds, and binaural beats. Also we provides the therapeutic functions through questionnaires to solve existing problems of the patients.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.95-99
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• 2014

Binaural interaction can recognize the same intensity sound by stimulating two ears alternatively, and it can be record auditory brainstem responses (ABR). However, We needs to be researched about binaural interaction in asymmetric binaural acoustic stimulation. 17 normal young hearing university students were participated. Clicks were presented at the intensity of 90 dB nHL to one ear and the click intensity was increased from 0 to 90 dB nHL with a separation of 10 dB to another ear, simultaneous. BI waveform was obtained by subtracting the sum of the asymmetrically evoked potentials from the binaurally evoked potentials; i.e. BI = B - (L + R). Latency and amplitude was measured 'peak to following trough' of IV-V complex of BI waveform. Threshold of BIC (t-BIC) was obtained using amplitude depend on stimulus intensities (paired sample t-test). Latency shifted in 4.65, 4.63, 4.57, 4.58, 4.62, 4.6, 4.48, 4.36, 4.23 ms for peak, 5.57, 5.51, 5.51, 5.59, 5.61, 5.55, 5.44, 5.28, 5.19 ms for trough, and amplitude shifted in .0.32, -0.3, -0.34, -0.32, -0.42, -0.53, -0.54, -0.61, $-0.67{\mu}V$ from 0 to 90 dB nHL in every 10 dB, respectively. t-BIC was observed 40 dB nHL(p=.001).

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.1793-1802
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• 2013

Various approaches for sound source segregation have been proposed. Among these approaches, frequency domain binaural model(FDBM) has the advantages of low computational load and effective howling cancellation. A binaural hearing assistance system based on FDBM has been proposed. This system can enhance desired signal based on the directivity information. Although FDBM has been evaluated in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and coherence function, the evaluation results do not always agree with the human impressions. These evaluation methods provide physical measures, and do not take account of perceptual aspect of human being. Considering a binaural hearing assistance system as a one of major applications, the quality of segregated sound should keep level enough. In the paper, signal segregation performance by means of FDBM is evaluated by three objective methods, i.e., SNR, coherence and Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality(PESQ), to discuss the characteristic of FDBM on the sound source segregation performance. The simulation's evaluation results show that FDBM improves the quality of the left and right channel signals to an equivalent level. And the results suggest the possibility that PESQ provides a more useful measure than SNR and coherence in terms of the segregation performance of FDBM. The evaluation results by PESQ show the effects from segregation parameters and indicate appropriate parameters under the conditions. In the paper, signal segregation performance by means of FDBM is evaluated by three objective methods, i.e., SNR, coherence and PESQ, to discuss the characteristic of FDBM on the sound source segregation performance. The simulation's evaluation results show that FDBM improves the quality of the left and right channel signals to an equivalent level. And the results suggest the possibility that PESQ provides a more useful measure than SNR and coherence in terms of the segregation performance of FDBM. The evaluation results by PESQ show the effects from segregation parameters and indicate appropriate parameters under the conditions.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of a wireless transceiver that can be inserted into the ear canal. The wireless technology could minimize the cosmetic problems of patients, and it can be applied to binaural hearing aids for improving speech perception. In order to implement the ear canal insertable transceiver, simple finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations were carried out to determine the feasibility, and the hardware of the transceiver was implemented within the ear shell. The size of the implemented transceiver was only $7{\times}7mm$, and it could successfully transmit signals to external devices. In order to measure the radiation pattern, a simple RF phantom was used, and the maximum attenuation from the phantom was observed to be 23 dB when the reference antenna was placed at a distance of 2 m from the transmitter.