Auditory Localisation by Hearing-Impaired Persons Using Binaural In-The-Ear Hearing Aids

The directional hearing for a white noise stimulus presented in the horizontal plane was tested for 11 hearing-impaired persons. Performance with binaural in-the-ear aids was compared to monaurally aided conditions. The data indicate that hearing-impaired subjects localise better with binaural aids. Also, presentation level is an important variable when considering monaural performance because at the higher intensities sufficient sound may enter the unaided ear to yield some binaural effects, i.e., the condition ceases to be a monaural one. Although further investigation is required, it is concluded that a procedure to measure localisation performance is important as a means for deciding whether binaural aids have been satisfactorily fitted.