A Real- Time Smartphone App for Field Personalization of Hearing Enhancement by Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization

Abstract

Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization (ADRO) is an amplification strategy which is used for hearing aids and other assistive hearing devices. To take into consideration hearing preferences of a specific user in the field, ADRO has been personalized by using maximum likelihood inverse reinforcement learning. A smartphone app is developed in this paper implementing the personalization of ADRO in real-world audio environments so that clinical studies can be carried out in the field. The developed app adjusts the comfort target parameter of ADRO by conducting paired audio comparisons in real-time to reach a personalized setting of gain values in five frequency bands. The audio processing steps taken to enable the app real-time functionality are discussed. The ADRO personalization results of the experiments carried out by using the app in different real-world environments are also presented.