TY  - JOUR
U1  - Zeitschriftenartikel, wissenschaftlich - begutachtet (reviewed)
A1  - Zirn, Stefan
A1  - Angermeier, Julian
A1  - Arndt, Susan
A1  - Aschendorff, Antje
A1  - Wesarg, Thomas
T1  - Reducing the Device Delay Mismatch Can Improve Sound Localization in Bimodal Cochlear Implant/Hearing-Aid Users
JF  - Trends in Hearing
N2  - In users of a cochlear implant (CI) together with a contralateral hearing aid (HA), so-called bimodal listeners, differences in processing latencies between digital HA and CI up to 9 ms constantly superimpose interaural time differences. In the present study, the effect of this device delay mismatch on sound localization accuracy was investigated. For this purpose, localization accuracy in the frontal horizontal plane was measured with the original and minimized device delay mismatch. The reduction was achieved by delaying the CI stimulation according to the delay of the individually worn HA. For this, a portable, programmable, battery-powered delay line based on a ring buffer running on a microcontroller was designed and assembled. After an acclimatization period to the delayed CI stimulation of 1 hr, the nine bimodal study participants showed a highly significant improvement in localization accuracy of 11.6% compared with the everyday situation without the delay line (p < .01). Concluding, delaying CI stimulation to minimize the device delay mismatch seems to be a promising method to increase sound localization accuracy in bimodal listeners.
KW  - bimodal hearing
KW  - cochlear implant
KW  - hearing aid
KW  - interaural stimulation timing
KW  - sound localization
Y1  - 2019
UR  - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332637275
SN  - 2331-2165
SS  - 2331-2165
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216519843876
DO  - https://doi.org/10.1177/2331216519843876
PM  - 31018790
VL  - 23
SP  - 1
EP  - 13
PB  - SAGE Publications
ER  -