Intuitively, we all believe that binaural processing plays a critical role in communication, especially at the venerable “cocktail party.” Indeed, if you attend a poster session at a large conference (like the ICA), close your eyes, plug one ear, and try to follow a scientific discussion, you will experience the importance of having two ears. Here we will discuss how binaural processing contrib...

Cochlear implants (CIs) provide children with access to speech information from a young age. Despite bilateral cochlear implantation becoming common, use of spatial cues in free field is smaller than in normal-hearing children. Clinically fit CIs are not synchronized across the ears; thus binaural experiments must utilize research processors that can control binaural cues with precision. Resear...

This paper deals with the use of neural networks for separating speech from other noisy sources in binaural hearing aids. In sound separation systems implemented in binaural hearing aids, the right and left hearing aids need to transmit to each other some parameters involved in the speech separation algorithm. The problem is that this transmission reduces the battery life, which is one of the m...

The relationship between interaural differences in speech-recognition performance and binaural advantage for speech in noise was studied. Subjects were five hearing-impaired listeners with symmetrical pure-tone air-conduction audiograms and significant interaural differences in speech recognition. All subjects repeated nonsense syllables in the presence of competing noise in monaural and binaur...

Cortical development extensively depends on sensory experience. Effects of congenital monaural and binaural deafness on cortical aural dominance and representation of binaural cues were investigated in the present study. We used an animal model that precisely mimics the clinical scenario of unilateral cochlear implantation in an individual with single-sided congenital deafness. Multiunit respon...

With the advent of wireless technology in hearing aids, it is currently possible to not only use the microphones of the left or the right hearing aid (bilateral configuration) but to use the microphones of both hearing aids (binaural configuration) to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments. On the one hand, since a larger number of microphones is available, a better noise reductio...

When speech recognition testing is performed under diotic conditions, some elderly persons with asymmetric hearing loss exhibit a phenomenon in which the performance of the poorer ear interferes with that of the better ear. This binaural interference phenomenon has been estimated to occur in 8 to 10 percent of elderly hearing aid users. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the pr...