Age-related hearing loss, speech understanding and cognitive technologies

Hearing loss is a common impairment that is present or will be present for most of us. Current hearing aids do not provide sufficient solution for this problem. They are mostly designed for voice amplification and improved signal to noise ratio—the physical part of spoken communication. Nevertheless, users often complain that they still do not understand what they now can hear. Extending the auditory research to cognitive processes and the brain could possibly change the way that hearing aids are designed to assist both hearing and cognition to reach the desired level of understanding. We present a list of potential directions and technologies that could serve as such. A previously published study is presented with a new interpretation that can demonstrate the suggested new and extended perspective of hearing technologies. It may serve as a basis for a new generation of cognitive hearing-aids that will address speech understanding. We then close with a discussion of acoustical transformations that address speech clarity and might promote speech understanding.