Patent ID: 9226084
Filing Date: 2015-12-29
Classification: H04R

Abstract:
1. A hearing aid with an input transducer, a processor, and an acoustic output transducer, said processor comprising a band-split filter, an estimator adapted for estimating speech and noise, a first gain vector component for providing a first gain vector comprising a first set of gain values to be applied in a corresponding set of frequency bands in order to alleviate a hearing loss of a hearing aid user, and a speech enhancement unit adapted for improving a speech intelligibility measure, wherein said speech enhancement unit comprises a second gain vector component for providing a second gain vector comprising an initial set of second gain values to be applied in a corresponding set of frequency bands, a calculator component for calculating a gradient of a speech intelligibility measure as a function of said second gain vector using a closed form expression and for iteratively updating the set of second gain values to improve speech intelligibility, a gain vector modifier for modifying said first gain vector by application of the set of second gain values; and an input signal processor for processing the input signal in accordance with said modified first gain vector, hereby providing an output signal adapted for driving said output transducer, wherein said speech enhancement unit comprises an optimizer configured for optimizing the speech intelligibility measure based on the sign of a modified value of a partial derivative of said calculated gradient, wherein said modified value is found by adding a parameter value to said partial derivative of said calculated gradient, wherein said parameter value is adapted to improve listening comfort, and wherein said parameter value is derived from an estimate of noise and speech in the sound environment.