A computer-aided enhancement system for cochlear implants patients

Abstract

A Cochlear Implant is a device that compensates for sensorineural hearing losses. The inconsistency in the response of patients with cochlear implants requires the improvement of the available speech processing strategies. In this project, an enhanced speech processing technique is proposed. The proposed strategy is based on filtering the original sound into 11 channels using butterworth bandpass filters of equal bandwidths, followed by an equalization stage. While this strategy is commonly adopted in several studies, the novelty in this project is to build the equalization on an accurate measurement of the hearing deficiencies identifying the frequency bands to enhance. The subjective experiments conducted on a person having a cochlear implant have shown the efficiency of the approach. During these experiments we have also been able to identify the hearing disturbing effect of masking some frequency bands by ambient noise.