Final Thesis

Examining Inter-Individual Differences between Hearing-Aid-Related Transfer Functions

Bachelor Thesis of Tan, Sin Ya

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) describe the filtering process of the incident sound, caused by interference with the ear for a random source position in space to one of both ears. Similarly, hearing aid-related transfer functions (HARTFs) describe the sound path to the built-in microphones of a hearing aid device, e.g., behind the ear (BTE). HARTFs are suited, for example, for medical usage such as hearing aid fitting. It is known that individual HRTFs are sensitively affected by different factors, such as listener’s head size and the shape of the ears. Various distance metric can be used to discuss the inter-individual differences. The aim of this thesis is to determine the differences between varied hearing aid-related transfer functions (HARTFs) from the IHTA-indHARTF database. For reference, the results will be contrasted with a complementary HRTF evaluation. Subsequently, the necessity of individualized HARTFs will be reviewed. Implications for the design of a dummy head for HARTFs will be further discussed.