Apps for Hearing Aids with Facemasks
Talking about the Clarisound story Kieran McCarry, Owner and Managing Director, loves to talk about the difference technology makes to hearing aids and how it changes peoples’ lives. “Younger people with hearing loss who use apps for managing their hearing aids can personally programme their hearing aids in real time, in real life, in real situations. This is something that we have never been able to do before,” says Kieran adding, “Customers used to come into our consultation room at Clarisound and say they want to change this or that. Now they are able to make their desired changes on the spot with an app.”
Hearing Aids and Facemasks
Apps for hearing aids can learn from you the user, respond to the changes being made and learn from them, and make adjustments based on their preferences. “It’s fantastic,” says Kieran, “an app even has a facemask mode! Nowadays everyone is wearing face masks and as soon as someone covers their mouth, it gets more difficult to hear them,” explains Kieran adding, “We lose the visual clues from speaking and these visual clues are important for good hearing. We learn from childhood to associate mouth movements with sound. It’s a very important part of good communication that is explained by the McGurk effect.”
Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices
In 1976, Harry McGurk, a British cognitive psychologist, together with John MacDonald found a ‘multisensory illusion’ occurring with audiovisual speech. This occurs when someone speaking is paired with a different, but similar, lip movement. A listener will hear one syllable as they watch the speaker’s lips and a different syllable with their eyes closed. This is known as ‘The McGurk effect’. A simple example is saying the syllable “ba.” When “ba” is visually synced with the lip movement of a different syllable, “fa”, listeners will hear “ba” with their eyes closed and “fa” when they watch the speaker’s lips. The change in sound is so strong that a listener will continue to hear “fa” even after they know the speaker is actually saying “ba.”
Watch it here:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_QI7y5aQqo[/embed]
Visual Clues and Hearing Loss
Looking at a speaker and seeing what they are saying is a simple but very efficient listening technique that can greatly improve your conversations, communications and quality of life.
If you, or your loved ones, have hearing loss and are wearing a face mask then it is almost impossible to effectively combine your hearing ability with visual input. Using an app with your hearing aid and facemask mode will help you, and your loved ones, to manage your hearing loss and continue to have good conversations during the Covid pandemic.