Individual Hearing Loss: Characterization, Modelling, Compensation Strategies

Abstract

It is well-established that hearing loss does not only lead to a reduction of hearing sensitivity. Large individual differences are typically observed among listeners with hearing impairment in a wide range of suprathreshold auditory measures. In many cases, audiometric thresholds cannot fully account for such individual differences, which make it challenging to find adequate compensation strategies in hearing devices. How to characterize, model, and compensate for individual hearing loss were the main topics of the fifth International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR), held in Nyborg, Denmark, in August 2015. The following collection of papers results from some of the work that was presented and discussed at the symposium.

Keywords: auditory modelling; cochlear implants; hearing aids; hearing loss characterization; individual differences.