Magnified binaural cues in a binaural hearing system

Abstract

Binaural hearing systems presented herein are configured to provide a recipient with magnified binaural cues. In certain embodiments, the techniques presented herein use static sideways beamforming with interaural magnification to capture and prepare sound signals for subsequent processing. That is, sound signals are captured at each of the binaural prostheses in accordance with a sideways directional pattern (e.g., directional patterns facing away from the head of the recipient). The sound signals captured with the sideways directional patterns, referred to as sideways directional signals, are then used to perform interaural magnification. In other embodiments, the techniques presented herein use constrained adaptive beamformers to capture sound signals for subsequent processing. In further embodiments, a hearing device of a binaural hearing system is configured to automatically select between the use of static sideways beamforming with interaural magnification, the use of adaptive beamformers, and/or other types of microphone directionality.