Auditory externalization in hearing-impaired listeners with remote microphone systems for hearing aids

The auditory system enables listeners to estimate the localization of auditory events resorting notablyto individual binaural cues and room reflections reaching the eardrum. For hearing-impaired listenersusing hearing aids, those cues are possibly distorted or not available in various situations such as re-mote microphone systems. This can make auditory distance evaluation a challenging task and oftenresults in inside-the-head sound perception. The present study aims at evaluating the effect of sev-eral binaural rendering strategies on auditory externalization in hearing-impaired and normal-hearinglisteners. Within a multiple-stimulus listening paradigm, normal-hearing and moderate-to-highly-profound hearing-impaired listeners were asked to rate the perceived distance of various stimulipresented over headphones, while visual cues were available. Results show that a degree of exter-nalization can be achieved for most of the aided hearing-impaired listeners with a simple genericspatialization method and superimposed early reflections.