Patent ID: 8654998

Claim:
A hearing aid apparatus comprising: a plurality of microphones configured to convert a voice of a conversation partner, and a sound including a call voice other than the conversation partner voice, into audio signals; a sound arrival direction estimation unit configured to estimate an arrival direction of the call voice other than the conversation partner voice based on the plurality of audio signals converted by the plurality of microphones; a frequency characteristic correction processing unit configured to correct a frequency characteristic of the call voice other than the conversation partner voice, based on the plurality of audio signals and the estimated arrival direction of the call voice other than the conversation partner voice; an audio standard pattern storage unit configured to store a call word standard pattern representing features of a phoneme and a syllabic sound based on voice data picked up by a microphone having a predetermined characteristic; a call word determination unit configured to check the call voice other than the conversation partner voice with the corrected frequency characteristic against the call word standard pattern, and further configured to determine whether the call voice is a call word; a direction-except-conversation-partner-direction directivity synthesis unit configured to form a directivity in a direction other than the arrival direction of the voice of the conversation partner, based on the determination result of the call word determination unit; and a voice output unit configured to output the call voice other than the conversation partner voice based on the directivity formed by the direction-except-conversation-partner-direction directivity synthesis unit, wherein the frequency characteristic correction processing unit corrects the frequency characteristic of the call voice other than the conversation partner voice so as to provide the same characteristic as the predetermined characteristic of the microphone used at the time of creating the call word standard pattern which is used for a check by the call word determination unit.