Interactive system for hearing devices
In an audio signal, one or more processing circuits recognize spoken content in a user's own speech signal using speech recognition and natural language understanding. The spoken content describes a listening difficulty of the user. The one or more processing circuits generate, based on the spoken content, one or more actions for hearing devices and feedback for the user. The one or more actions attempt to resolve the listening difficulty. Additionally, the one or more processing circuits convert the user feedback to verbal feedback using speech synthesis and transmit the one or more actions and the verbal feedback to the hearing devices via a body-worn device. The hearing devices are configured to perform the one or more actions and play back the verbal feedback to the user.
1. A sound processing system comprising:
a set of one or more hearing devices, wherein:
each of the hearing devices comprises at least one microphone and a receiver, and
for at least one hearing device of the set of hearing devices, the hearing device is configured to use the at least one microphone of the hearing device to detect an own speech signal of a user; and
one or more processing circuits configured to:
recognize spoken content in the own speech signal of the user using speech recognition and natural language understanding, the spoken content describing a listening difficulty of the user;
generate, based on the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user, one or more actions for the hearing devices and feedback for the user, wherein the one or more actions attempt to resolve the listening difficulty by making adjustments to hearing device states of one or more of the hearing devices and the feedback is responsive to the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user;
convert the feedback to verbal feedback using speech synthesis, wherein the hearing devices are configured to perform the one or more actions and play back the verbal feedback to the user using the receivers,
ask the user whether to conference in a hearing professional in response to receiving an indication from the user that the one or more actions were unsuccessful in resolving the listening difficulty of the user;
in response to an indication from the user to conference in the hearing professional, conference in the hearing professional over a network connection to resolve the listening difficulty; and
learn from what the hearing professional does to resolve the listening difficulty.
2. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processing circuits are further configured to learn to generate the one or more actions based in part on what other users do in situations similar to that of the user.
3. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein one of the hearing devices is a master hearing device, and the master hearing device is configured to enhance the own speech signal of the user and to reduce background noise and interference using microphones from both the hearing devices.
4. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein one of the hearing devices is a master hearing device, and the master hearing device is configured to enhance the own speech signal of the user by beamforming all microphones on the hearing devices followed by postfiltering.
5. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuits are included in one or more of a body-worn device, a cloud-based computing system, or one or more of the hearing devices.
6. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more actions include one or more of:
activation of binaural noise reduction, or
adjusting one or more compressor parameters.
7. The sound processing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processing circuits are further configured to:
receive a name for the hearing device states from the user;
associate the hearing device states with the name;
receive a spoken request from the user to change current hearing device states to the hearing device states associated with the name; and
in response to the spoken request, change the current hearing devices states to the hearing device states associated with the name.
8. A method for making adjustments to hearing devices of a sound processing system, the method comprising:
receiving, by one or more processing circuits, an own speech signal of a user, wherein the own speech signal of the user is detected by at least one microphone of the hearing devices;
recognizing, by the one or more processing circuits, spoken content in the own speech signal of the user using speech recognition and natural language understanding, the spoken content describing a listening difficulty of the user;
generating, by the one or more processing circuits, based on the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user, one or more actions for the hearing devices and feedback for the user, wherein the one or more actions attempt to resolve the listening difficulty by making adjustments to hearing device states of one or more of the hearing devices and the feedback is responsive to the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user;
converting, by the one or more processing circuits, the feedback to verbal feedback using speech synthesis;
asking, by the one or more processing circuits, the user whether to conference in a hearing professional in response to receiving an indication from the user that the one or more actions were unsuccessful in resolving the listening difficulty of the user;
in response to an indication from the user to conference in the hearing professional, conferencing in, by the one or more processing circuits, the hearing professional over a network connection to resolve the listening difficulty; and
learning, by the one or more processing circuits, from what the hearing professional does to resolve the listening difficulty.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising learning, by the one or more processing circuits, to generate the one or more actions based in part on what other users do in situations similar to that of the user.
10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more actions include one or more of:
activation of binaural noise reduction, or
adjusting one or more compressor parameters.
11. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
receiving a name for the hearing device states from the user;
associating the hearing device states with the name;
receiving a spoken request from the user to change current hearing device states to the hearing device states associated with the name; and
in response to the spoken request, changing the current hearing devices states to the hearing device states associated with the name.
12. The method of claim 8 , wherein the processing circuits are included in one or more of a body-worn device, a cloud-based computing system, or one or more of the hearing devices.
13. The method of claim 8 , wherein one of the hearing devices is a master hearing device, and the master hearing device is configured to enhance the own speech signal and to reduce background noise and interference using microphones from both the hearing devices.
14. The method of claim 8 , wherein one of the hearing devices is a master hearing device, and the master hearing device is configured to enhance the own speech signal of the user by beamforming of all microphones of the hearing devices followed by postfiltering.
15. A non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium having instructions thereon that, when executed by one or more processing circuits, cause a sound processing system to:
receive an own speech signal of a user, wherein the own speech signal of the user is detected by at least one microphone of a set of one or more hearing devices;
recognize spoken content in the own speech signal of the user using speech recognition and natural language understanding, the spoken content describing a listening difficulty of the user;
generate, based on the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user, one or more actions for the hearing devices and feedback for the user, wherein the one or more actions attempt to resolve the listening difficulty by making adjustments to hearing device states of one or more of the hearing devices and the feedback is responsive to the spoken content describing the listening difficulty of the user;
convert the feedback to verbal feedback using speech synthesis;
ask the user whether to conference in a hearing professional in response to receiving an indication from the user that the one or more actions were unsuccessful in resolving the listening difficulty of the user;
in response to an indication from the user to conference in the hearing professional, conference in the hearing professional over a network connection to resolve the listening difficulty; and
learn from what the hearing professional does to resolve the listening difficulty.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium of claim 15 , wherein execution of the instructions further causes the sound processing system to learn to generate the one or more actions based in part on what other users do in situations similar to that of the user.