Optimization of hearing aid parameters

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9084066-B2
Application number	US-9023206-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 13, 2006
Priority date	Oct 14, 2005
Publication date	Jul 14, 2015
Grant date	Jul 14, 2015

Abstract

The present invention relates to a new method for effective estimation of signal processing parameters in a hearing aid. It is based on an interactive estimation process that incorporates—possibly inconsistent—user feedback. In particular, the present invention relates to optimization of hearing aid signal processing parameters based on Bayesian incremental preference elicitation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. In a hearing aid with a library of signal processing algorithms F, a method of configuring the hearing aid comprising:
extracting a signal feature of a signal in the hearing aid;
recording in the hearing aid a first input representing a first response, wherein the first input is resulted from a user of the hearing aid operating a control associated with the hearing aid,
configuring the hearing aid based on the recorded first input, wherein the act of configuring the hearing aid based on the recorded first input involves a set of signal processing parameter(s);
recording in the hearing aid a second input representing a second response, wherein the second input is resulted from the user operating the control associated with the hearing aid; and
configuring the hearing aid based on the second input;
wherein each of the acts of configuring the hearing aid comprises performing a computation by the hearing aid based on a Bayesian inference;
wherein the act of recording the first input comprises recording a measure of an adjustment of the hearing aid that is resulted from the user operating the control; and
wherein the act of configuring the hearing aid based on the recorded first input is performed by a processing unit in the hearing aid based on the signal feature, a learning parameter, and the measure of the adjustment.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising recording the user's k th decision d k in response to a signal x k , and updating P(ω) in accordance with
P (ω| D k )∝ P ( d k |x k ,ω) P (ω| D k−1 ), and

calculating a new optimum θ k * in accordance with

θ
k
*

=

arg
⁢

⁢
max

θ

⁢

∑
n

⁢

⁢

P
⁡

(

x
n

)

⁢

∫
ω

⁢

U
⁡

(

x
n

,
θ
,
ω

)

⁢

P
⁡

(

ω
❘

D
k

)

⁢

⁢

ⅆ
ω

,

wherein
U(y;ω) is a user satisfaction model,
P(ω) is an uncertainty about model parameters ω
y is a processed signal F(x,Θ),
F is the library of hearing aid signal processing algorithms,
Θ is an algorithm parameter space,
x n is a set of n input signals,
P(x n ) is an input signal probability function, and
D i ={d 1 , d 2 , . . . , d i } is a set of recorded user decisions from decision 1 to i.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising recording the user's k th decision d k in response to a signal x k , and updating P(ω) in accordance with
P (ω| D k ,α)∝ P ( d k |ω) P (ω| D k−1 ,α),

and calculating a new optimum θ k * in accordance with

θ
k
*

=

arg
⁢

⁢

⁢
max

θ

⁢

∑
n

⁢

⁢

P
⁡

(

x
n

)

⁢

∫
ω

⁢

U
⁡

(

x
n

,
θ
,
ω

)

⁢

P
⁡

(

ω
❘

D
k

,
α

)

Assignees

• De Vries Aalbert
• Ypma Alexander
• Gn Resound As

Inventors

• De Vries Aalbert
• Ypma Alexander

Classifications

• H04R25/70 Primary

  Adaptation of deaf aid to hearing loss, e.g. initial electronic fitting · CPC title