The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the Oldenburg research group "Individualised Hearing Acoustics" with 2.1 million euros over the next three years. The goal: "Hearing for all", even in acoustically challenging situations.
"With its decision, the DFG is recognising the outstanding achievements of hearing research in Oldenburg. The research group that has now been approved will further expand the national and international importance of the University of Oldenburg in the field of hearing research with its work for the benefit of hearing-impaired people," emphasises University President Prof. Dr Babette Simon.
The scientific spokesperson is Prof Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier, Head of the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Oldenburg. Ten scientists from the university, the HörTech Center of Competence and the Jade University of Applied Sciences have joined forces in the research group. They want to achieve "hearing for all" even in acoustically challenging situations.
"The number of hearing-impaired people in Germany is constantly increasing. Almost one in five people are now affected," says physicist and physician Kollmeier. In everyday life, noise or reverberation often significantly disrupts the exchange between listener and speaker. "We want to solve these fundamental difficulties using methods from acoustics, psychoacoustics and signal processing."
The separation between desired useful sound and unwanted noise is known as the "interference source problem". This problem occurs primarily in acoustically demanding situations, for example in a busy café. "The current signal processing technology of hearing aids is nowhere near as powerful as healthy human hearing and cannot yet be sufficiently adapted to the individual needs of the user," explains Kollmeier, adding: "We are striving for completely new ways of presenting sound, either with spatially radiating loudspeaker arrangements or directly in the ear canal with 'anti-sound'."
In order to achieve better solutions in hearing technology, the scientists want to research hearing models and algorithms over the next few years, which will be incorporated into prototypes for future hearing systems. The aim is to make acoustic perception predictable and controllable in as many situations as possible for a large number of individual user profiles in order to optimise them. "With this research group, we have succeeded in integrating our newly appointed colleagues in applied physics into a joint project in such a way that we can come much closer to the common goal of 'hearing for all'," says Kollmeier, delighted with the DFG funding. "This is a good prerequisite for our application in the cluster of excellence competition."
Together with hearing researchers from Hanover, Oldenburg scientists took part in the current competition in the 2011 Excellence Initiative with the "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence proposal. The funding decision will be made in June 2012.