Posted on 04/29/2025 9:45:33 PM PDT by Red Badger
People with hearing loss often struggle with the "cocktail party problem." (Photo by StudyFinds on Shutterstock AI Generator)
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In a nutshell
* A new brain-inspired algorithm called BOSSA could dramatically improve how hearing aids handle noisy environments. It could help users focus on a single voice in a crowded room, something conventional hearing aids often struggle with. * BOSSA mimics how the brain processes sound, using just two microphones to preserve natural spatial cues and separate overlapping speech, outperforming both unprocessed hearing and today’s industry-standard hearing aid technology in lab tests.
* While still in development, BOSSA shows strong potential to enhance social connection and cognitive health for people with hearing loss, and future versions could be steered dynamically, possibly even by tracking where a listener looks.
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BOSTON — When standing in a crowded room, multiple conversations blur together into an incomprehensible wall of sound. For people with hearing loss, this scenario, dubbed the “cocktail party problem,” isn’t just annoying; it’s a barrier to social connection that can lead to isolation and cognitive decline.
But researchers at Boston University have developed a solution that could transform how hearing aids work in these challenging environments. According to a study published in Communications Engineering, their brain-inspired algorithm, called BOSSA (Biologically Oriented Sound Segregation Algorithm), has demonstrated remarkable success where conventional hearing technologies often fail.
The Global Hearing Loss Crisis
Nearly 50 million Americans are believed to have hearing loss today, and worldwide, the number of people affected is expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
“The primary complaint of people with hearing loss is that they have trouble communicating in noisy environments,” says study author Virginia Best from Boston University, in a statement. “These environments are very common in daily life, and they tend to be really important to people—think about dinner table conversations, social gatherings, workplace meetings. So, solutions that can enhance communication in noisy places have the potential for a huge impact.”
For individuals with hearing loss, the difficulty of selective listening can be so extreme that it seriously impedes communication and participation in daily life. The consequences extend far beyond just missing parts of conversations, potentially leading to declines in cognitive health, with associated societal and economic costs.
How BOSSA Works
The BOSSA technology draws inspiration from how our brains naturally process sound. The algorithm is based on a hierarchical network model of the auditory system, in which binaural sound inputs drive populations of neurons tuned to specific spatial locations and frequencies, and the spiking responses of neurons in the output layer are reconstructed into audible waveforms.
In simpler terms, the technology uses just two microphones (like our two ears) and mimics how our brain distinguishes between speakers based on their location. This allows a person to focus on a single voice in a crowded room, something current hearing aids struggle to accomplish.
The research team tested their algorithm on adults with sensorineural hearing loss, the most common type of permanent hearing loss that affects the inner ear or nerve pathways. In challenging tests with multiple speakers talking simultaneously, BOSSA consistently outperformed both unprocessed hearing and the industry standard technology currently used in hearing aids.
Most previous hearing aid solutions sacrifice spatial information by reducing multichannel inputs to a single-channel output. This means that individual sound sources are not heard at their original locations, which can be disorienting and disrupt the brain’s ability to separate different voices. BOSSA, however, preserves these crucial spatial cues, allowing users to maintain a natural listening experience while significantly improving speech intelligibility.
Participants saw their ability to understand speech improve by anywhere from 0.3 to 11.3 decibels, depending on the test. The higher the number, the greater the improvement. Importantly, no one did worse using BOSSA than hearing without any special processing.
Meanwhile, the standard beamforming technology used in today’s hearing aids (called MVDR, or Minimum Variance Distortionless Response) showed no significant benefit in the study’s multitalker scenarios. It only proved effective in tests with steady background noise, not the complex overlapping speech that creates the most difficulty for people with hearing loss.
With Apple and other tech companies entering the hearing aid market, traditional manufacturers face increasing pressure to innovate. The BOSSA technology could represent the kind of breakthrough needed to stay competitive in this rapidly evolving field.
The researchers tested two versions of their algorithm—DiffMask and RatioMask—both of which consistently outperformed unprocessed sound and today’s hearing aid technology. The tests were conducted using sentences spoken by multiple female talkers arranged at different spatial locations around the listener, creating a challenging environment where voices were highly confusable.
Unlike other technologies that require many microphones, BOSSA uses only two input signals and produces two output signals that preserve natural spatial cues. It is also well-suited for low-power real-time applications, making it practical for wearable hearing-assistive devices where power consumption and device size are critical considerations.
By enabling a clearer understanding of speech in noisy environments, this technology could help people maintain social connections and potentially reduce the cognitive decline associated with hearing loss.
There’s still work to be done before this technology reaches consumers. Future versions of BOSSA could incorporate user input to dynamically change which speaker is being enhanced, potentially using eye-tracking technology to determine which person the listener is looking at.
“In the long term, we’re hoping to take this to other populations, like people with ADHD or autism, who also really struggle when there’s multiple things happening,” says study author Kamal Sen from Boston University.
Biologically inspired algorithms like BOSSA could significantly improve the quality of life for the millions of people who struggle with hearing in complex acoustic environments. As our population ages and hearing loss becomes increasingly common, such technologies could help bridge the gap between hearing and understanding, keeping people connected to conversations, communities, and cognitive health.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers recruited eight adults (ages 20-42) with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss to test the performance of their BOSSA algorithm compared to unprocessed sound and an industry-standard MVDR beamformer. Participants completed two experiments where they had to identify words from target sentences mixed with competing sentences from different locations. In Experiment 1, each word in a sentence was spoken by a different female talker and were time-aligned to increase difficulty. In Experiment 2, words in each sentence were spoken by the same talker with natural timing to ensure results weren’t dependent on specific experimental choices. Sentences were simulated to originate from five different locations around the listener, with the target located at 0° (straight ahead) or ±30° (slightly to the left or right). The researchers tested four processing conditions: Natural (unprocessed), two versions of BOSSA (DiffMask and RatioMask), and the standard MVDR beamformer used in hearing aids. Performance was measured by calculating the percentage of correctly identified words at different target-to-masker ratios (TMRs).
Results
Both versions of BOSSA consistently outperformed both unprocessed hearing and the standard MVDR beamformer across all experimental configurations. Participants experienced improvements in speech reception thresholds ranging from 0.3 to 11.3 decibels, with no participant performing worse with BOSSA than with unprocessed sound. In contrast, the MVDR beamformer provided no significant benefit in the challenging multitalker scenarios, though it did perform as expected in a control experiment using steady background noise instead of competing speech. The researchers found that BOSSA’s approach of preserving spatial cues was particularly beneficial for helping listeners separate speech in complex acoustic environments where multiple people are speaking simultaneously.
Limitations
The current study had several limitations. The sample size was small with only eight participants, and only four completed the second experiment. The algorithm currently requires the number and location of spatially tuned neurons to be fixed according to known locations of competing talkers, which would need to be addressed for real-world implementation. Additionally, while BOSSA performed well with fluctuating speech maskers, it performed poorly with steady noise, suggesting that future versions would need optimization for different acoustic environments. The researchers also noted that their implementation included linear gain to compensate for hearing loss, while commercial hearing aids typically use compressive gain, which might further enhance benefits.
Funding and Disclosures
The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (Award No. R01 DC013286), the National Science Foundation (Award No. 2319321), and the Demant Foundation. The authors declared no competing interests.
Publication Information
The paper titled
“A brain-inspired algorithm improves ‘cocktail party’ listening for individuals with hearing loss”
was published in Communications Engineering (2025, Volume 4, Article 75) by Alexander D. Boyd, Virginia Best, and Kamal Sen from Boston University’s Hearing Research Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and Neurophotonics Center
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CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???????????
TINNITUS RING LIST!.............
RING!...................
“Cigars? Cigarettes? Vaping Vials?”
I sure hope these hearing aids come out soon.
The traditional solution to the Cocktail Party Problem is to smile and nod alot.
Unless it’s full of gays..............
My hubby needs hearing aids. I have been wondering what is a good option currently available?
Once the source code is licensed..................
Is he a veteran?
I got mine from the VA. Programmable and changeable via Bluetooth with a smartphone. In the civilian world they would be $2500 each ear.
Stay away from the El Cheapos advertised on TV. They are garbage. A ripoff................
“For individuals with hearing loss, the difficulty of selective listening can be so extreme”
These folks should talk to my wife.
She’s been using selective hearing waaaaay before her hearing aids were put in.
Got mine from COSTCO.
Even though I’m eligible for TRICARE for LIFE (health care for veterans), I’m not eligible for VA because of income limits.
Others may complain about my hearing loss, but it doesn’t bother me a bit. I’ve heard enough, already.
What?.....................
I SAID, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SWEEP WITH ME? I’D LIKE TO SWEEP TOGETHER!
Funny. Just watched that one again the other night.
To my shock, this syndrome just started happening to me. No fun.
Part of the problem is the semiconductors used in making the devices. They typically run on 1.5 volt cells. That doesn’t leave a lot of overhead for a high signal to noise ratio.
There is an old technology from back in the 80’s and 90’s that was called ‘COMPANDING’ which was a way to increase the signal to noise ratios in solid state electronic devices.
I don’t know if these new modern hearing aids use this circuitry or not but it might prove useful again.............
a better solution is to avoid them ...
My poor MIL is overwhelmed in a group setting, meaning more than two people with her at a time. A couple of years ago, when she turned 95, we gathered all of her children for a week long celebration. There were 8 of us with her, her 5 children and some of the spouses. It was fun (most of the time), but when we were all together she was just dazed. I don’t think she understood a word of what was said.
It may be too late to help her, but you never know. She’s a stubborn lady and has a goal of making it to her 100th birthday, which will be in 3 years. She’ll turn 97 next week. Still at home, but with caregivers that come during the day.
One of my complaints with these new computerized hearing aids is they have a overload protection circuit.
When either hearing aid receives an overly strong input, lets say loud car horn or a child screaming, they will suddenly go mute for a few seconds until the sound level diminishes, and only on the side that the sound comes from. While this may sound like a good thing for them to do to protect what’s left of your hearing, it does get annoying at times. Especially when just one side goes then your spatial awareness goes all to one side or the other like stereo headphones balance being turned full left or right.
And most annoying of all is when they do this and you can’t even hear what it was that made them do it in the first place.
They are overly sensitive to high pitched sounds that I and most people my age cannot hear anyway. Like say a dog whistle which we can’t hear but dogs do, the same thing happens with the hearing aids. It has full spectrum frequency response that is way beyond what my ears can or could ever hear. If it picks up a loud ‘sound’ in these frequencies it will react exactly the same way as if it was in the lower ranges and suddenly cut off for a few seconds until it goes away. And you get disoriented for those few seconds.................
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