The University is getting a new Collaborative Research Centre: the project on the topic of "Hearing Acoustics" is expected to receive around eight million euros in funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) over the next four years. The head of the SFB is psychoacoustician Volker Hohmann.
Traffic noise, the clattering of dishes or the tinkling of mobile phones: such disturbing noises make it difficult for many people to follow a conversation - even those who do not actually need a hearing aid. "However, linguistic communication is the basis for social participation," emphasises Prof. Dr Volker Hohmann. He heads the new CRC entitled "Hearing Acoustics: Perceptive Principles, Algorithms and Applications (HAPPAA)". The large-scale project, which is scheduled to run for a total of twelve years, focuses on the interaction between people with impaired hearing and their acoustic environment. Hohmann - one of the leading researchers in the "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence and winner of the German Future Prize - wants to work with his colleagues to lay the foundations for improved hearing aids and hearing assistance systems. Other leading hearing research institutions involved in the CRC include RWTH Aachen University, TU Munich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, Jade University of Applied Sciences and HörTech gGmbH Oldenburg.
"In the new Collaborative Research Centre, the Oldenburg hearing researchers are once again dedicating themselves to their goal of providing the best possible help for the hearing impaired. With this funding, the German Research Foundation is recognising the outstanding national and international importance of our hearing research," explains University President Prof. Dr Dr Hans Michael Piper.
Hearing as an active process
The Collaborative Research Centre "Hearing Acoustics" builds on the results of the DFG research group "Individualised Hearing Acoustics", which is due to expire shortly and which Prof. Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier and Hohmann have jointly headed since 2012. The researchers from the University of Oldenburg, the HörTech Center of Competence and Jade University of Applied Sciences laid the foundations for being able to optimally adapt hearing technologies to the individual user and the respective acoustic environment in the future. The centre of the now approved CRC is now the complicated interaction between people with impaired hearing and their acoustic environment. "In reality, a hearing situation is constantly changing because people react to voices and sounds. For example, they turn their head towards the sound source or move their eyes," explains Hohmann. Until now, however, this interaction has not been taken into account in hearing acoustics, according to the researcher. Instead, hearing was regarded as a passive process. Test subjects in the laboratory were instructed not to move if possible. "This is why many hearing aids work well in the lab, but less so in reality," he says.
Immersing yourself in a virtual environment
Hohmann and his colleagues refer to the dynamic interaction between the hearing person and their environment as an "acoustic communication loop". They are now incorporating this process into hearing modelling for the first time. People whose hearing is already impaired due to age, but who do not yet need a hearing aid, can also benefit from an improved understanding of this "auditory loop". The team is researching models, algorithms and applications in three work areas with a total of twelve sub-projects in order to capture the basic principles of this loop. Based on models of speech perception and hearing quality in people with normal and impaired hearing, Hohmann and his colleagues want to improve the algorithms that process acoustic signals in hearing aids, as well as investigate some applications as examples - for example, to find out how loudspeaker signals in a noisy environment can be made more comprehensible, such as announcements in a railway station.
Another aim is to develop an intelligent earmould that offers high sound quality while suppressing feedback and reducing background noise. The experts are also investigating how complex acoustic scenes can be reproduced realistically via headphones. In the future, test subjects could be immersed in a virtual reality that resembles a real environment both visually and acoustically - such as a busy café or a turbulent classroom. At the same time, the technology could also be used to watch films at home with optimal acoustics, for example. In the long term, the results of the CRC will also be used for other applications in the field of consumer electronics, such as speech recognition or human-machine communication.
Active promotion of young researchers
The Collaborative Research Centre that has now been approved also contributes to the active promotion of young scientists - thanks to an integrated research training group. CRC spokesperson Hohmann emphasises: "We are laying the foundations for further improving rehabilitation with hearing aids for the benefit of patients, training highly qualified young scientists for hearing research and also supplementing the research of the Hearing4all cluster of excellence with important fundamental building blocks."
