Just listen to this radio clip. It’s only takes 50 seconds for the Franklin Institute’s chief bioscientist, Jayatri Das, to demonstrate something fundamental about your brain.

She starts with a clip that’s been digitally altered to sound like jibberish. On first listen, to my ears, it was entirely meaningless. Next, Das plays the original, unaltered clip: a woman’s voice saying, “The Constitution Center is at the next stop.” Then we hear the jibberish clip again, and woven inside what had sounded like nonsense, we hear “The Constitution Center is at the next stop.”

The point is: When our brains know what to expect to hear, they do, even if, in reality, it is impossible. Not one person could decipher that clip without knowing what they were hearing, but with the prompt, it’s impossible not to hear the message in the jibberish.

This is a wonderful audio illusion.

The reason is that we still think of our senses—sight, hearing, touch—as reflecting the outside world, purely. But they don’t. They provide us with a mixture of the world out there and our own expectations. 

Hearing, itself, is thinking. Which makes it subject to the machinations of the rest of the brain, which are constantly priming the ears about what they should be expecting.

Read the full article on theatlantic.com.

The ability to discern pitch and to hear the difference between similar-sounding words relies on specialised cells within the inner ear, which can be damaged.

For the first time, scientists have discovered what controls the cells’ development and pattering.

They studied the development of these cells in chickens, which unlike humans, have the capacity to regrow sound-detecting cells after suffering hearing loss.

A study by the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders says that if scientists understand what causes chickens’ cells to redevelop they could one day replicate the process in humans to reverse hearing loss.

Jeffrey Corwin of the university said that if both a human and a hen were to be exposed to a sound loud enough to destroy the ability to hear a certain pitch, the outcomes would be very different.

‘We would lose the ability to hear that sound for the rest of our lives.

‘The bird also would lose the ability, but within 10 days, it would have its cells back – they would hook back up to the nerves and within a few weeks its hearing would be back and almost indistinguishable from before.’

Read the full article at –>dailymail.co.uk

I am excited to announce that I’ve been working with Geoffrey Cooling on a new product and service for audiology practices and hearing healthcare providers. Audiology Engine provides an easy-to-use Website Builder for practice websites and all the surrounding services that are needed to ensure that your website, and your practice, is a success.

Geoffrey is an industry veteran who has worked as a hearing aid dispenser and more recently as a Sales Manager for one of the largest manufacturers in the industry. He writes about the hearing industry, marketing and practice management at Just Audiology Stuff.

We are still busy putting the finishing touches to Audiology Engine but we do have a coming soon page up where you can leave your contact details should you wish to find out more or want to know when we launch.

Being something of a geek, I am more involved with the website provision side of things, whereas Geoffrey is putting together the content marketing, SEO, practice management and patient retention side of things. We will provide a web-platform that enables practices to quickly and easily create their own website that uses the latest and best technologies to ensure that their website is found in search engines, is user friendly,  is fast and reliable, works on all devices from desktops to smarthphones and is a system that practice owners can work with easily to manage their online presence. A bit further down the line, we have plans to add practice management functionality, marketing tools and other features that will be extremely useful for any modern hearing practice.

If your practice doesn’t have a website, or does but you need something better, leave your contact details and we’ll let you know as soon as we launch.

400 Which? Members who had bought a hearing aid in the past 3 years were recently surveyed to find out about their hearing aid buying experiences in the UK.

Results were based on a survey conducted between 28th March and 8th April 2014 of 407 Which? Connect members who had bought a hearing aid within the previous 3 years.

80 local independent retailers along with 255 national retailers made up the sample.

Customers scores were a combination of satisfaction and recommendation and the star ratings for product and pricing were based on the range of products, transparency of their pricing, clarity of information provided with them and time given to decide on products.

Staff and Service was made up of ratings of the professionalism and knowledge of staff, customer service, handling of questions and concerns plus explanations given.

AIHHP is delighted to see the latest findings from this survey, which supports the work of its’ independent members.

Chair, Duncan Collet-Fenson commented “As a group of leading hearing aid audiologists who are committed to promoting and maintaining the very highest professional and ethical standards in hearing healthcare; our aim is always to ensure that the needs of our customers are put first, without any allegiance to specific manufacturers. By being independent we can absolutely guarantee the best solution to meet our customers hearing requirements.”

Original article: http://www.aihhp.org/which-survey-independents-are-the-best-hearing-aid-providers/

Dr. Glen MacPherson doesn’t remember the first time he heard the sound. It may have started at the beginning of 2012, a dull, steady droning like that of a diesel engine idling down the street from his house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. A lecturer at the University of British Columbia and high school teacher of physics, mathematics and biology, months passed before MacPherson realized that the noise, which he’d previously dismissed as some background nuisance like car traffic or an airplane passing overhead, was something abnormal.

“Once I realized that this wasn’t simply the ambient noise of living in my little corner of the world, I went through the typical stages and steps to try to isolate the sources,” MacPherson told Mic. “I assumed it may be an electrical problem, so I shut off the mains to the entire house. It got louder. I went driving around my neighborhood looking for the source, and I noticed it was louder at night.”

Exasperated, MacPherson turned his focus to scientific literature and pored over reports of the mysterious noise before coming across an article by University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to exploring topics outside of mainstream science. “I almost dropped my laptop,” says MacPherson. “I was sure that I was hearing the Hum.”

“The Hum” refers to a mysterious sound heard in places around the world by a small fraction of a local population. It’s characterized by a persistent and invasive low-frequency rumbling or droning noise often accompanied by vibrations. While reports of “unidentified humming sounds” pop up in scientific literature dating back to the 1830s, modern manifestations of the contemporary hum have been widely reported by national media in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia since the early 1970s.

Read the full article on mic.com.

On Semiconductor have released two new DSPs, with the aim of lowering manufacturing costs of both high-end and low-end hearing aids. The R3920 and R3110 are new additions to their 
RHYTHM range of products.

A DSP (or Digital Signal Processor ) is the microchip inside a hearing aid that converts incoming sounds to allow you to hear them more clearly.

Whilst the biggest players in the hearing aid industry still create their own DSP technology the push by companies like On Semiconductor to provide low-cost DSPs make it much simpler for other companies to challenge the likes of Phonak, Starkey and Widex.

The R3920 is the high-end model, it offers features 16-channels of wide dynamic range compression (WDRC), providing audiologists the freedom of fine granularity fitting. The iSceneDetect™ environmental classification algorithm on R3920 discerns various sound environments and then selects the most appropriate mode automatically for a high-quality, custom audio experience. Impulse noise reduction, another new feature on R3920, monitors and attenuates sharp, impulsive noises such as clattering dishes that could otherwise be very uncomfortable for hearing aid users.

The lower-spec model, the R3110, is aimed more at low-cost hearing aid suppliers who are selling pre-programmed or self-programmed aids. It provides a “turnkey” solution that requires little or no programming by a hearing professional but still offers features like noise reduction, feedback cancellation, telecoil and dual microphones.

This is great news for us, the customers – as the price of the technology that goes into hearing aids drops and the features offered improves, companies can offer the complete aid package to us at better prices.

The big six hearing aid manufacturers (William Demant, Sonova, Starkey, Siemens, ReSound and Widex) still account for around 80% of all hearing aid sales but if more companies can get to market with high-quality, low price products built upon DSPs from the likes of On Semiconductor then I hope we’ll see falling prices, increased innovation and more happier customers.

Wear is an assistive device designed to improve quality of life for people with hearing loss. Wear is a high fidelity directional analog microphone that is significantly lower in price than existing hearing aids. This microphone can be used with any pair of headphones, has a volume control, is rechargeable, and comfortable to wear.

Wear has been in development for the past two years, it incorporates a low profile micro-miniature, patent pending, directional microphone technology that creates a 6 foot zone which captures, focuses and clarifies conversations in noisy environments, while reducing the effects of extraneous noise.

Wear is not a replacement for a hearing aid, it is designed to be used when an individual is interested in having a quality conversation in very noisy environments like family get togethers, restaurants or meetings. Wear can also be used as a commentators microphone eliminating the need to hold a microphone during an interview and other high quality audio recording applications.

Wear is a project by Eric Rosenthal, Michelle Temple from Brooklyn – they have been working on prototypes for two years and are now using the Kickstarter website to try and raise funds to create and ship the finished product. The Kickstarter page for the project is: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/771490867/wear-a-wearable-personal-assistive-hearing-device

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Speakers at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service were joined on stage by a sign language interpreter, but according to many sign experts he is a fake.

During the service, Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, the first deaf woman to be elected to the South African parliament tweeted: “ANC-linked interpreter on the stage with dep president of ANC is signing rubbish. He cannot sign. Please get him off.” Another tweet from Francois Deysel, a South African sign language interpreter, added that he was “making a mockery of our profession”.

Apparently the interpreter has been used at previous African National Congress events and members of the deaf community have already raised concerns about him. The African government will now look into how this man has been able to sign at public events despite not using any known dialect of sign language. Sheena Walters, of the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters, said, “It seems quite obvious that the interpreter isn’t using South African sign language”.

Orfield Labrotories in Minnesota have built an anechoic chamber that is so quiet that no-one can bear to be inside for more than 45 minutes. It has entered into the Guiness Book Of World Records as officially the quietest place on earth – tests measured background noise in the chamber as -9.4 dBA. Yes, that’s minus 9.4 decibels!

The labrotory’s founder, Steven Orfield, said, “”We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark – one person stayed in there for 45 minutes. When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound”.

The chamber is used by companies to test the noise levels of their products – Harley Davidson have tested their bikes in there and Whirlpool their washing machines.

The chamber is so quiet (and dark) that it is very disorientating, if you stay in too long then you start to hallucinate. You also need to be sitting down when inside, Orfield said, “How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don’t have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair”.

I’ve been in many sound-proofed rooms for hearing tests in which the lack of noise is noticable, you can almost feel the quietness. Hard to imagine what it is like in this chamber but I’m sure my tinnitus would keep me company.

I’ve written a guest article on Geoffrey Cooling’s Just Audiology Stuff website, it’s my opinion on the future of hearing aid sales. Spoiler: It’s online sales with smart self-programming software.

Geoffrey’s website is a great resource for hearing aid dispensers and practice owners or anyone else who is interested in marketing, sales and hearing healthcare.

You can read my article here: http://justaudiologystuff.com/index.php/another-hearing-aid-consumers-view-unbundling-and-business-disruption/