Dr Alinka Greasley awarded funding to improve music listening for people with hearing loss

Dr Greasley has been awarded EPSRC funding for a project that will develop novel signal processing approaches for music to be used in hearing aids and consumer devices.

The funding has been awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for a new collaborative project between the Universities of Salford, Sheffield, Leeds and Nottingham, with partners Google, BBC R&D, RNID, Logitech, Sonova and the University of Oldenburg.

Hearing aid users often experience poor sound quality and distortion when listening to music, as has been evidenced in the Hearing Aids for Music project.

Combining expertise in signal processing, music psychology, and hearing sciences, the Enhance Music project will develop transformative approaches to music processing by hearing aids through the organisation of a series of machine learning challenges. In these challenges, algorithms to enhance music listening experiences for those with hearing loss will be evaluated by and according to criteria set by panels of participants with hearing loss.

Dr Alinka Greasley will lead on the development of audio quality measures for music that will be used for machine learning optimisation, forming sensory and listener panels of individuals with varying hearing abilities and mapping perceptual dimensions affecting their listening experience.

The project will increase the number of researchers considering personalised music listening for people with hearing loss, driving innovative technological solutions and improving access to and enjoyment with music, with the proven health and wellbeing benefits that brings.