University of Leeds – Hearing Aids for Music

Do you experience problems listening to music? Harley Street Hearing are pleased to support ‘Hearing Aids for Music’, a research project exploring how hearing aids affect the enjoyment and perception of music.

hearing aids for music

Exploring the music listening behaviour of people with hearing impairments

‘Hearing aids for music’ is a collaborative project between the University of Leeds and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust investigating how music listening experiences are affected by deafness, hearing impairments and the use of hearing aids.

The project is led by Music Psychologist, Dr Alinka Greasley, and Dr Harriet Crook, Lead Clinical Scientist for Complex Hearing Loss. The research has been awarded funding worth £247,295 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Music is an important part of people’s lives and can have powerful physical, social, and emotional effects on individuals, including those with all levels of hearing impairment – even the profoundly deaf. The purpose of hearing aids is to amplify speech, and evidence suggests that many hearing aid users experience problems when listening to music, such as acoustic feedback, distortion and reduced tone quality.

It will be the first academic research project in which data from clinical audiology will be used alongside psychological data to systematically explore how hearing aids affect music listening, whether listening to a CD at home or going to a live symphony or rock concert.

The team aim to help audiologists discuss music listening issues with their patients and also benefit manufacturers of hearing aids by providing a basis for improved digital signal processing.

Improved access to music using hearing aids will benefit people of all ages, facilitating music education for deaf children and young people, music listening and performance in adulthood, and continued musical engagement into old age.

Harley Street Hearing & Musicians’ Hearing Services are pleased to support the team who are currently conducting a short clinic survey. To take part, please ask your audiologist at Harley Street Hearing for a music listening survey or email the team here

You can also find out more about the project here

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