Loudness models can guide hearing aid programming and alarm design

Evidence

The loudness model is based on many decades of psychophysical data, and it predicts the loudness of steady-state sounds rather well. It is also clear from the loudness model that sounds can be loud because of multiple reasons: Sounds may be loud because of high presentation levels or because of a wide bandwidth. As the field progresses, we may be able to use loudness models to estimate how loud sounds might be for a listener with sensorineural hearing loss or for sounds that fluctuate. The applications are numerous: We could use such models to select the best ring tone that would allow you to hear an emergency phone call or to program a hearing aid for attending a symphony versus a lecture. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 782

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: how computational loudness models could be turned into everyday assistive decisions - emergency tones, hearing aid presets per environment.