Hearing aid SNR improvements fall below the just-noticeable threshold for speech understanding

Evidence

Given the difficulty in achieving SNR benefits greater than 6 dB in realistic environments with current hearing aid processing outwith wireless transmission of the signal (e.g., Whitmer et al. 2011 ), the evidence here indicates that there is no demonstrable “wow” in speech-intelligibility benefits. Rather, assessing other potential avenues of benefit—such as long-term improvements, attentional/cognitive ease, and psycho-social engagement—could show the advantages of hearing aids despite the benefits they give in SNR being less than the JND or JMD. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5714

Categorization

• QUESTION: The chapter implies SNR gains below the JND/JMD could still matter via attention, cognitive ease, or psychosocial engagement — worth chasing what the measurable non-SNR benefits actually are.
• DEFINE: Introduces JND (just noticeable difference) and JMD (just meaningful difference) as the relevant thresholds distinguishing detectable from meaningful speech-intelligibility change.