A HEARING DEVICE COMPRISING A SPEECH INTELLIGIBILTY ESTIMATOR FOR INFLUENCING A PROCESSING ALGORITHM

• Main Authors: ZAHEDI, Adel, JENSEN, Jesper, PEDERSEN, Michael Syskind
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 14.08.2024
• Subjects: DEAF-AID SETS; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKEACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS

The application relates to a hearing device, e.g. a hearing aid, adapted for being worn by a user and for receiving sound from the environment of the user to process the sound with a view to the user's intelligibility of speech in said sound, wherein an estimate of the user's intelligibility of speech in said sound being defined by a speech intelligibility measure I of said sound at a current point in time t, the hearing device comprising a) an input unit for providing a number of electric input signals y, each representing said sound in the environment of the user, b) a signal processor for processing said number of electric input signals y according to a configurable parameter setting ˜ of one or more processing algorithms, which when applied to said number of electric input signals y provides a processed signal y p (˜) in dependence thereof, the signal processor being configured to provide a resulting signal y res , c) a controller configured to control the processor to provide said resulting signal y res at a current point in time t in dependence of c1) a parameter set ¦ defining a hearing profile of the user, c2) said electric input signal(s) y or characteristics extracted from said electric input signal(s), e.g. a noise covariance matrix C v and/or covariance matrix C Y of noisy signals, c3) a current value I (y) of said speech intelligibility measure I for at least one of said electric input signals y, c4) a desired value Ides of said speech intelligibility measure, c5) a first parameter setting ˜1 of said one or more processing algorithms, c6) a current value I (y p (˜1)) of said speech intelligibility measure I for a first processed signal y p (˜1) based on said first parameter setting ˜1, and c7) a second parameter setting ˜' of said one or more processing algorithms, which, when applied to said number of electric input signals y, provides a second processed signal y p (˜') exhibiting said desired value I des of said speech intelligibility measure. The application further relates to a method of operating a hearing device. The invention may e.g. be used in hearing aid systems, or other portable audio processing systems.