Hearing Aid Auditory Threshold Testing with Adaptive Tone Sets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for determining auditory thresholds in hearing aid users are prone to errors due to user expectations and subjective responses, leading to inaccurate audiogram results.
Innovation Solution
A method involving the presentation of multiple tone sets with varying properties, requiring users to indicate perceived noise counts, allowing for adaptive adjustment of tone sets based on user responses to estimate auditory thresholds more accurately.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If traditional tone presentation methods are used to determine auditory threshold, then the test method is simple to implement, but the measurement precision deteriorates due to user expectations and blind confirmation
Solution Approach 1:
The test is divided into multiple tone sets, each containing multiple individual tones. Instead of presenting tones sequentially in a simple ascending order, the method segments the auditory threshold determination into discrete tone sets with varying properties (number of tones, volume levels, frequency distributions). This segmentation allows the system to collect multiple independent responses and aggregate them for more accurate threshold determination, reducing the impact of user expectations on any single response.
Solution Approach 2:
The method dynamically changes parameters of the tone sets between presentations, including the number of tones in each set, their volume levels, frequency distributions, and time intervals. By varying these parameters across multiple tone sets, the system creates a more challenging and less predictable test that reduces user ability to anticipate and blindly confirm tones, thereby improving measurement precision while maintaining operational simplicity through automated parameter adjustment.
2Measurement precision
If multiple tone sets with varying properties are presented to reduce false indications, then the measurement precision improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically manages the complexity of presenting and analyzing multiple tone sets with varying properties. The control unit autonomously generates different tone set configurations, presents them to the user, records responses, and processes the data to determine auditory thresholds. This self-service approach allows the method to implement complex multi-tone-set procedures without requiring complex manual operation, as the system handles the complexity internally while maintaining a simple user interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The method incorporates feedback mechanisms where the system analyzes user responses to each tone set and uses this information to adjust subsequent tone set parameters. The control unit processes the perceived number of tones reported by the user and uses this feedback to optimize the presentation of following tone sets, thereby systematically improving measurement precision through adaptive parameter adjustment rather than requiring complex manual test procedures.
Data Source
AI summary
To determine an auditory threshold of a test subject, according to the method, multiple tone sets, which predominantly contain a plurality of noises, having properties remaining uniform within a tone set, are presented in succession to a test subject by use of an output transducer. The test subject is asked to indicate a perceived number of noises from the presented tone set after each presentation of one of these tone sets. As a function of the perceived number of noises, a property of at least one part of the noises is changed in relation to the preceding tone set for the presentation of a following tone set and the following tone set is presented to the test subject. As a function of the respective perceived number of noises in the presented tone sets, at least one value of the auditory threshold of the test subject is estimated.