BYU's algorithm allows the Natura to break natural sound down into nine frequency bands, like a home stereo's graphic equalizer. That's important because among the hearing impaired, there is a wide range of deficiencies across the different bands. When a person chooses the Natura, a hearing care professional can customize the frequency bands to compensate for the customer's specific impairment. Users say this custom fit helps them experience natural, lifelike hearing and communication. Also, the Natura focuses on the consonant sounds that begin words.
Humans get most of their information about a word from the first sounds out of a person's mouth.
Christiansen and Chabries teamed with Thomas Stockham, a pioneer in the digital recording field, and Carver Mead, a professor of engineering and applied science at the California Institute of Technology, to create a tiny computer chip to run the algorithm. Since September of 1998, Sonic Innovations has sold more than 20,000 hearing aids and is the fastest growing company of its kind, said Andy Raguskus, president and CEO of Sonic Innovations. Raguskus credits a large part of his company's sales success to the BYU technology. Secondly, our devices are very tiny and help tremendously to overcome the stigma that's associated with wearing a hearing aid. BYU's Christiansen did his own experiment to determine just how imperceptible the Natura really is.