Directional hearing-aid microphones improve speech-in-noise SNR by over 7 dB.

Evidence

In the case of a hearing aid, it is generally assumed that the listener’s head is pointing in the direction of the sound of interest. In this way, a directional microphone selectively represents sounds to the front of the listener more than sounds to the side or the back of the listener. Assessment of directional microphones includes measurements of speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) in the laboratory, which has demonstrated great success in improving the perception of speech in noise. In some cases improvements in the SNR of over 7 dB have been observed (e. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1735

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1735
• XREF: connects to: Directive microphone arrays in hearing aids improve speech intelligibility in noise; Microphone construction determines directional sensitivity patterns like cardioid and dipole; A meaningful speech-in-noise benefit requires at least 6 dB of SNR improvement (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Every 1 dB of signal-to-noise improvement raises speech intelligibility by 7 to 19 percent #expands (0.85)
• Directional coincident microphones suppress room reverberation, killing sense of space #complicates (0.82) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1840
• Directional microphones trade speech clarity for degraded sound-localization cues #complicates (0.80)
• Improving speech intelligibility via noise reduction outweighs equivalent improvement of the target signal. #expands (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3536