Interview with Graham Naylor Ph.D., Research Director, Eriksholm Research Center, Denmark
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Topic: Hearing Aid Research, Innovation and Possibilities
Beck: Good Morning Graham. It's a pleasure to meet you.
Graham: Hi Doug. Nice to meet you too.
Beck: Graham, I know you're the Director of Research here at Oticon in Denmark, but before we talk about that specifically, would you please tell us a little about your professional background?
Graham: Sure Doug. My doctorate is actually in room acoustics, and I earned that in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987. The program was excellent. After graduating and leaving Scotland, I spent five years doing post-doctoral research on sound perception and room acoustics at a Danish university. As it happens, Claus Elberling was at the University doing a research project part time, and working here at Eriksholm most of the time. We began by discussing arcane technical details of modulation, and ended by agreeing that I really ought to be working to solve the problems of the hearing-impaired. To cut a long story short, he invited me to work here, which was very exciting, and I started working for Oticon in 1993.
Beck: Can you discuss some of the projects you worked on?
Graham: Well, my first major undertaking had to do with earmold acoustics. It was a big fat report summarizing everything we knew about the subject. I liked that one quite a bit, but we never released it -- it was for internal use only. We learned quite a bit, and we use the results internally to this day, so it was a very good project. After that, I worked on what we refer to as "auditory modeling" which is a mathematical model that represents the loudness a given signal may generate in a particular ear.
Beck: So your background has supported the "open-ear" fitting approach which Oticon has embraced?
Graham: Very good observation - exactly right. And of course digital engineering allows us even better open ear fittings with significantly less feedback, less occlusion and with better high frequency representation. As you know, open ear acoustics allows the professional to not have to be in the very uncomfortable situation, in which they say "You'll get used to it." With open fittings, the sound is much better from the beginning, and we don't have to apologize for the side effects quite so much! So in essence, we're moving away from the more traditional idea of a hearing aid as an amplifier, and we're moving towards the idea of the hearing aid as a signal processor.
Beck: What's the biggest challenge you face when adding so many advantageous circuits to a digital hearing aid?
Graham: Getting them all to "play together" is a chore! As you know, Doug, every time you introduce one more electronic feature, it interacts with all the others. So the task is to have the best of them available and working well together so as to not detract from each other, or interfere with other functions. And that is not so much a technological issue - it has more to do with how users want and expect things to work, and how to make sure that all these fancy features operate like a discreet servant. Doing all the right things without being asked, and without drawing attention to themselves. It takes a strong audiological team to answer these questions, and we always test our ideas through trials with our large panel of users.
Beck: I wonder if you can tell me specifically...what things are done electronically to reduce or eliminate feedback?
Graham: There are three things that can be done, and they can all be done at the same time. First is phase cancellation, where the circuit detects feedback is developing, and sends out a signal of opposite phase to cancel it, that works well for dynamic, fast acting feedback events. Secondly, the circuit addresses "static feedback" or "long-term" feedback using slightly different techniques which take advantage of not having to react so fast. The third thing to do is reduce gain, which is hardly new, but with multi-channel filtering we can make sure gain is reduced specifically in the target area.
Beck: That is impressive. How does Eriksholm's work feed into the overall product development process at Oticon?
Graham: That is a very good question, and the answer is that the work done at Eriksholm is not actually determined by the short or medium-term plans of Oticon. It's not a case of "Oticon is going to launch X in two years, so Eriksholm had better do some research on it". Rather, we look for areas where there is a lack of knowledge, and where new knowledge might lead to possibilities for better products in the long term. Then we plug away at those areas, sometimes for many years. Along the way, sometimes almost as by-products, such research projects generate 'nuggets' which can be used by the product development people in the short term. And seen over a longer timescale, our involvement with a particular area of research influences the general philosophical approach built into Oticon's products. Of course, the research and development groups are always talking to each other, so when a long-term research project reaches the point where we're confident a given concept (for example, "VoiceFinder") is going to be practical and beneficial, the product development team will probably work it into their plans. But even if they decide not to, the work is not wasted, because we will have learned a lot of things along the way.
Beck: Eriksholm seems like a "think tank." Similar to designing and performing research at a university, is that right?
Graham: Yes, more or less. When I moved from a university to Eriksholm, I thought about that too, and I arrived at essentially two issues. For the individual researcher, being at Eriksholm is different because the research is coordinated...people make plans based on what you do, and therefore, they want to hear about your work and understand it. Whereas in a university setting, excellent research occurs, but it can occur in isolation, that is knowledge for the sake of knowledge, without a pragmatic application...and that is important too, but serves a different function. So that's the first difference, at Eriksholm, research occurs to create new knowledge which has probable application for the overall team as it moves forward. The other big difference between Eriksholm and a university center is that at the end of the day, Eriksholm's research has commercial application, therefore, we rarely pursue questions without known consequence in the real world. Secondly, we can quickly see the result of our work in the lives of real hearing-impaired individuals. And finally, if you have a good idea and can argue your case, financial support is immediate, no grant writing and funding delays!
Beck: Do you have examples of long-term work which has led to unexpected conclusions?
Graham: Sure. The obvious one involves "loudness." Eriksholm worked on loudness issues, in one form or another for about twenty years - and OK, I must admit, this is a bit extreme! The early work started when "Loudness Compensation" first was a hot topic in the late seventies, and led rapidly to the conceptual definition of a multi-channel compression hearing aid. Interestingly, the idea was initially shelved, and years later the idea "morphed" into MultiFocus, the world's first hearing aid without a VC. Nonetheless, in the early nineties "Loudness Scaling" was all the rage and we worked on that, too. All that culminated in Claus Elberling's award-winning article 'Loudness Scaling Revisited' (JAAA, 1999) and today, everyone understands loudness quite a bit better now, and the consequences of that work are built into amplification strategies almost as second nature.
Beck: What are the largest challenges we face as an industry?
Graham: Well, I'll try and answer as someone trying to find ways of providing end users with better hearing performance, since that's what Eriksholm is all about. To me, oddly enough, the biggest challenge we face is not hearing aid technology. Technology is racing ahead, and each new generation of advanced products is more bewilderingly wonderful and complex than the last. However, significant challenges may include that the Hearing Care Professional needs more "quality time" with patients and more efficient clinical tools to properly set and evaluate hearing instruments for individuals. Those may be the challenges we're looking at currently, in 2005.
Beck: I reviewed the presentation about brain function and hearing, which was presented at the 2004 Oticon Anniversary, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can you discuss the correlation between brain issues and hearing aids?
Graham: Yes. I think when we truly spend the time to understand problems, often times, the solutions become apparent, sometimes by asking a more focused question, or sometimes by examining the core issue which facilitates the question itself! Doug, as an audiologist, you know we listen with our brains, not our ears. Research being conducted here and around the world, reveals the importance of brain function in determining how much benefit a hearing-impaired person can obtain from a hearing aid. We see correlations between brain function and the relative benefits of alternative signal-processing schemes. So, maybe in the future we'll be using measures of brain function to help prescribe optimal hearing-aid settings and analysis!
Beck: One last thing .... the physical site where we're sitting today, Eriksholm Research Center. Can you please tell me a little about it?
Graham: Oticon acquired this facility in 1977. We're about 25 miles north of Copenhagen. Before 1977, although Oticon had a research program, but the staff was located within the main facility and they were not able to dedicate themselves exclusively to their research projects. Oticon decided it would be more productive to physically separate the researchers, and that really has been fabulous for everyone. In essence, the physical distance between the researchers and the rest of the team allows those of us in research to focus on concepts, not products. By the time the concept is "mature" the technology will catch-up, so again, we don't worry too much about technical constraints.
Importantly, the facility, it's location and the scholastic environment allow us to better exchange information with academic and research institutions, too. We also provide a congenial environment for hearing-impaired people to take part in our experiments. We have 15 or more research employees, and the building is some 4000 square meters. We also have a fair amount of students working on their master's and doctorates working here for a few months at a time, or longer, depending on the situation, to enhance their studies and to run their experiments, and we work with quite a few universities across the world.
Beck: I must admit the Eriksholm facility is absolutely beautiful. It houses the library, the museum and of course the anechoic chamber, clinical tools and instruments and a fabulous lecture hall.
Graham: Thanks Doug. It is quite nice, isn't it? And we're glad to have you visit.
Beck: Thank you too Graham. It has been a pleasure touring the facility, and discussing these issues with you.
-------------------------
For more information visit www.Oticonusa.com.
Fo more information on the Eriksholm Research Center, visit www.oticonus.com.
Graham: Hi Doug. Nice to meet you too.
Beck: Graham, I know you're the Director of Research here at Oticon in Denmark, but before we talk about that specifically, would you please tell us a little about your professional background?
Graham: Sure Doug. My doctorate is actually in room acoustics, and I earned that in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987. The program was excellent. After graduating and leaving Scotland, I spent five years doing post-doctoral research on sound perception and room acoustics at a Danish university. As it happens, Claus Elberling was at the University doing a research project part time, and working here at Eriksholm most of the time. We began by discussing arcane technical details of modulation, and ended by agreeing that I really ought to be working to solve the problems of the hearing-impaired. To cut a long story short, he invited me to work here, which was very exciting, and I started working for Oticon in 1993.
Beck: Can you discuss some of the projects you worked on?
Graham: Well, my first major undertaking had to do with earmold acoustics. It was a big fat report summarizing everything we knew about the subject. I liked that one quite a bit, but we never released it -- it was for internal use only. We learned quite a bit, and we use the results internally to this day, so it was a very good project. After that, I worked on what we refer to as "auditory modeling" which is a mathematical model that represents the loudness a given signal may generate in a particular ear.
Beck: So your background has supported the "open-ear" fitting approach which Oticon has embraced?
Graham: Very good observation - exactly right. And of course digital engineering allows us even better open ear fittings with significantly less feedback, less occlusion and with better high frequency representation. As you know, open ear acoustics allows the professional to not have to be in the very uncomfortable situation, in which they say "You'll get used to it." With open fittings, the sound is much better from the beginning, and we don't have to apologize for the side effects quite so much! So in essence, we're moving away from the more traditional idea of a hearing aid as an amplifier, and we're moving towards the idea of the hearing aid as a signal processor.
Beck: What's the biggest challenge you face when adding so many advantageous circuits to a digital hearing aid?
Graham: Getting them all to "play together" is a chore! As you know, Doug, every time you introduce one more electronic feature, it interacts with all the others. So the task is to have the best of them available and working well together so as to not detract from each other, or interfere with other functions. And that is not so much a technological issue - it has more to do with how users want and expect things to work, and how to make sure that all these fancy features operate like a discreet servant. Doing all the right things without being asked, and without drawing attention to themselves. It takes a strong audiological team to answer these questions, and we always test our ideas through trials with our large panel of users.
Beck: I wonder if you can tell me specifically...what things are done electronically to reduce or eliminate feedback?
Graham: There are three things that can be done, and they can all be done at the same time. First is phase cancellation, where the circuit detects feedback is developing, and sends out a signal of opposite phase to cancel it, that works well for dynamic, fast acting feedback events. Secondly, the circuit addresses "static feedback" or "long-term" feedback using slightly different techniques which take advantage of not having to react so fast. The third thing to do is reduce gain, which is hardly new, but with multi-channel filtering we can make sure gain is reduced specifically in the target area.
Beck: That is impressive. How does Eriksholm's work feed into the overall product development process at Oticon?
Graham: That is a very good question, and the answer is that the work done at Eriksholm is not actually determined by the short or medium-term plans of Oticon. It's not a case of "Oticon is going to launch X in two years, so Eriksholm had better do some research on it". Rather, we look for areas where there is a lack of knowledge, and where new knowledge might lead to possibilities for better products in the long term. Then we plug away at those areas, sometimes for many years. Along the way, sometimes almost as by-products, such research projects generate 'nuggets' which can be used by the product development people in the short term. And seen over a longer timescale, our involvement with a particular area of research influences the general philosophical approach built into Oticon's products. Of course, the research and development groups are always talking to each other, so when a long-term research project reaches the point where we're confident a given concept (for example, "VoiceFinder") is going to be practical and beneficial, the product development team will probably work it into their plans. But even if they decide not to, the work is not wasted, because we will have learned a lot of things along the way.
Beck: Eriksholm seems like a "think tank." Similar to designing and performing research at a university, is that right?
Graham: Yes, more or less. When I moved from a university to Eriksholm, I thought about that too, and I arrived at essentially two issues. For the individual researcher, being at Eriksholm is different because the research is coordinated...people make plans based on what you do, and therefore, they want to hear about your work and understand it. Whereas in a university setting, excellent research occurs, but it can occur in isolation, that is knowledge for the sake of knowledge, without a pragmatic application...and that is important too, but serves a different function. So that's the first difference, at Eriksholm, research occurs to create new knowledge which has probable application for the overall team as it moves forward. The other big difference between Eriksholm and a university center is that at the end of the day, Eriksholm's research has commercial application, therefore, we rarely pursue questions without known consequence in the real world. Secondly, we can quickly see the result of our work in the lives of real hearing-impaired individuals. And finally, if you have a good idea and can argue your case, financial support is immediate, no grant writing and funding delays!
Beck: Do you have examples of long-term work which has led to unexpected conclusions?
Graham: Sure. The obvious one involves "loudness." Eriksholm worked on loudness issues, in one form or another for about twenty years - and OK, I must admit, this is a bit extreme! The early work started when "Loudness Compensation" first was a hot topic in the late seventies, and led rapidly to the conceptual definition of a multi-channel compression hearing aid. Interestingly, the idea was initially shelved, and years later the idea "morphed" into MultiFocus, the world's first hearing aid without a VC. Nonetheless, in the early nineties "Loudness Scaling" was all the rage and we worked on that, too. All that culminated in Claus Elberling's award-winning article 'Loudness Scaling Revisited' (JAAA, 1999) and today, everyone understands loudness quite a bit better now, and the consequences of that work are built into amplification strategies almost as second nature.
Beck: What are the largest challenges we face as an industry?
Graham: Well, I'll try and answer as someone trying to find ways of providing end users with better hearing performance, since that's what Eriksholm is all about. To me, oddly enough, the biggest challenge we face is not hearing aid technology. Technology is racing ahead, and each new generation of advanced products is more bewilderingly wonderful and complex than the last. However, significant challenges may include that the Hearing Care Professional needs more "quality time" with patients and more efficient clinical tools to properly set and evaluate hearing instruments for individuals. Those may be the challenges we're looking at currently, in 2005.
Beck: I reviewed the presentation about brain function and hearing, which was presented at the 2004 Oticon Anniversary, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Can you discuss the correlation between brain issues and hearing aids?
Graham: Yes. I think when we truly spend the time to understand problems, often times, the solutions become apparent, sometimes by asking a more focused question, or sometimes by examining the core issue which facilitates the question itself! Doug, as an audiologist, you know we listen with our brains, not our ears. Research being conducted here and around the world, reveals the importance of brain function in determining how much benefit a hearing-impaired person can obtain from a hearing aid. We see correlations between brain function and the relative benefits of alternative signal-processing schemes. So, maybe in the future we'll be using measures of brain function to help prescribe optimal hearing-aid settings and analysis!
Beck: One last thing .... the physical site where we're sitting today, Eriksholm Research Center. Can you please tell me a little about it?
Graham: Oticon acquired this facility in 1977. We're about 25 miles north of Copenhagen. Before 1977, although Oticon had a research program, but the staff was located within the main facility and they were not able to dedicate themselves exclusively to their research projects. Oticon decided it would be more productive to physically separate the researchers, and that really has been fabulous for everyone. In essence, the physical distance between the researchers and the rest of the team allows those of us in research to focus on concepts, not products. By the time the concept is "mature" the technology will catch-up, so again, we don't worry too much about technical constraints.
Importantly, the facility, it's location and the scholastic environment allow us to better exchange information with academic and research institutions, too. We also provide a congenial environment for hearing-impaired people to take part in our experiments. We have 15 or more research employees, and the building is some 4000 square meters. We also have a fair amount of students working on their master's and doctorates working here for a few months at a time, or longer, depending on the situation, to enhance their studies and to run their experiments, and we work with quite a few universities across the world.
Beck: I must admit the Eriksholm facility is absolutely beautiful. It houses the library, the museum and of course the anechoic chamber, clinical tools and instruments and a fabulous lecture hall.
Graham: Thanks Doug. It is quite nice, isn't it? And we're glad to have you visit.
Beck: Thank you too Graham. It has been a pleasure touring the facility, and discussing these issues with you.
-------------------------
For more information visit www.Oticonusa.com.
Fo more information on the Eriksholm Research Center, visit www.oticonus.com.
