The Effect of Binaural Beamforming Technology on Mandarin Speech Recognition in Babble Noise for Bimodal Hearing CI users
Aiting Chen
Mengdi Hong
Jianan Li
Qian Wang
Nan Li
Lumeng Han
Qian Wu
Haihong Liu
Yidi Liu
Yue Long
Fangxia Hu
Jianfen Luo
Lei Xu
Zhaomin Fan
Peng Lin
Wei Wang
Yue Wang
Yu Chen
Zhaohui Hou
Fei Ji
Abstract：Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of bimodal beamforming on speech recognition and comfort for cochlear implant (CI) users with the bimodal hearing solution made up by linking a hearing aid to the CI sound processor. Methods: 19 subjects participated in this study. Speech tests were conducted in quiet and in noisy environments, with the target speech presented from 0° and the noise signal from 45°. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were compared among the previously used bimodal hearing configuration (baseline, any CI sound processor plus any hearing aid), the Naída Bimodal Hearing Solution with omnidirectional microphone, and with directional microphone (so called Stereo-Zoom) switched on. In addition, the study participants provided subjective feedback on their hearing impressions. Results: The SRT results showed no significant difference among the three hearing conditions in the quiet environment. No significant improvement was reported when using Naída bimodal system with omnidirectional microphone in noise compared to the baseline (p=0.27). When applying StereoZoom, SRT in noise showed significant improvements compared to omnidirectional settings (p＜0.05). Subjective feedback showed that 13 participants were satisfied with Naída Bimodal Hearing Solution, and wanted to continue using it after the trial. Conclusion: The Naída Bimodal Hearing Solution with the same pre-processing algorithm can provide satisfying hearing performance. Beamforming technology can further improve speech perception in noisy environments.
Keywords：bimodalCochlear Implantspeech recognitionbeamformingdirectional microphone
Publication Date：2025-07-30
Online Publishing Date：2025-11-07(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：5( 157-161 )