Poster Session #1
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Al Yonovitz
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Abstract / Artist's Statement
The purpose of this study was to design a test of soft sounds that would be beneficial to patients with decreased hearing. Hearing aid fitting strategies concentrate more on hearing conversational speech levels rather than soft sounds. These soft sounds often allow a full auditory experience for the patient. Soundscape stimuli are sound exemplars that are constructed with high quality sound recordings in a specific fashion to create a real-life sounding experience. Soundscapes are a relatively new technology that are used in the field of acoustics. Little use of these stimuli have been utilized in audiology. For this study we made a series of ten one minute long soundscapes to present to participants. They were made with very strict criteria. We established ten themes to construct them and chose a background sound that may be present in the environment we were simulating. For example, one of our topics was camping, and the background sound was a fire crackling. We then proceeded to choose six micro-sounds per theme to present intermittently throughout the background clips. These were sounds that would play within the background for approximately one to five seconds at fifteen second intervals. Each background (ten themes, were repeated twice for a total of twenty), had three of the six designated sounds embedded in them while the other corresponding background sound had the remaining three. The micro-sounds were embedded at specific intensity levels that would be audible only near the sound awareness level for the micro-sound (20 dB). The test procedure should allow those with hearing loss to hear soft sounds with a hearing aid.
Category
Health and Medical Science
Construction of the Soft Sound Test for Hearing Aid Prescription
UC South Ballroom
The purpose of this study was to design a test of soft sounds that would be beneficial to patients with decreased hearing. Hearing aid fitting strategies concentrate more on hearing conversational speech levels rather than soft sounds. These soft sounds often allow a full auditory experience for the patient. Soundscape stimuli are sound exemplars that are constructed with high quality sound recordings in a specific fashion to create a real-life sounding experience. Soundscapes are a relatively new technology that are used in the field of acoustics. Little use of these stimuli have been utilized in audiology. For this study we made a series of ten one minute long soundscapes to present to participants. They were made with very strict criteria. We established ten themes to construct them and chose a background sound that may be present in the environment we were simulating. For example, one of our topics was camping, and the background sound was a fire crackling. We then proceeded to choose six micro-sounds per theme to present intermittently throughout the background clips. These were sounds that would play within the background for approximately one to five seconds at fifteen second intervals. Each background (ten themes, were repeated twice for a total of twenty), had three of the six designated sounds embedded in them while the other corresponding background sound had the remaining three. The micro-sounds were embedded at specific intensity levels that would be audible only near the sound awareness level for the micro-sound (20 dB). The test procedure should allow those with hearing loss to hear soft sounds with a hearing aid.