EVALUATION OF NOISE-REDUCTION SYSTEMS FOR COCHLEAR IMPLANT USERS IN DIFFERENT ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENT

Evaluation of two different noise reduction algorithms for speech inte lligibility enhancement in cochlear implant (CI) users is described in this report. The algorithms accomplish sophisticated interchannel pro cessing of the noisy speech signals, picked up with two microphones, t o form an improved monaural output signal, which is directly fed into the auxiliary input of the CI speech processor. Speech intelligibility tests were carried out in different realistic everyday life listening conditions to provide general and expressive performance assessment. Extensive tests in four CI users showed considerable speech intelligib ility improvement using those noise reduction systems in adverse every day life listening conditions.