The purpose of this study is to introduce the potential application of a new signal-processing strategy, spatiotemporal pattern correction (SPC), which is based on our knowledge of the level-dependent temporal response properties of auditory-nerve (AN) fibers in normal and impaired ears. SPC manipulates the temporal aspects of different frequency channels of sounds in an attempt to compensate for the loss of nonlinear properties in the impaired ear. Quality judgments and intelligibility measures of speech processed at various SPC strengths were obtained on a group of normal-hearing listeners and listeners with hearing loss. In general, listeners with hearing loss preferred sentences with some level of SPC processing, whereas normal-hearing listeners preferred the quality of the unprocessed sentences. Benefit from SPC on the nonsense syllable test varied greatly across phonemes and listeners. These preliminary findings suggest that SPC, a temporally based algorithm designed to improve the perception of speech for listeners with hearing loss, has potential to be useful to listeners with hearing loss. However, before this strategy can be integrated in hearing aids, a more comprehensive study on the benefit of SPC for listeners with different degrees and configurations of hearing loss is needed.
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