1. Hearing training
Mike Sharples
Learning Sciences Research Institute
University of Nottingham
www.nottingham.ac.uk/lsri/msh

2. How can we design assistive
technology to help people learn
to cope with hearing problems?

3. Coping with hearing problems
• Learning to use auditory assistive
devices
– Adaptive fitting of hearing aids
– Adapting to transformed sounds
– Developing strategies for interaural
listening
• Learning to communicate despite
hearing impairment

4. Personalised learning that is
part of everyday life and is
productive

5. Learning as…
• Changing behaviour
• Enhancing skills
• Storing information
• Gaining knowledge
• Making sense of the world
• Interpreting reality in a different way

6. Changing behaviour Tone/ syllable/ speech
discrimination
Enhancing skills Sound localisation
Storing information Improving working
memory
Gaining knowledge Knowing when to
wear a hearing aid
Making sense of the Interpreting noisy
world conversation
Interpreting reality in Adjusting socially
a different way

7. Personalised training
• Matched
– Training matches hearing problem
• Adaptive
– Training continually adjusts to performance
• Contextual
– Training adjusts to location, time available
• Customisable
– User can adjust the visual appearance and
presentation
• Informative
– Gives feedback on performance

8. Taking learning into everyday life

9. Productive learning
• The stronger the learner’s motivation,
the greater the engagement
• The greater the engagement, the
longer the time-on-task
• The longer the time-on-task, the
more productive the learning

10. Motivation
• Extrinsic motivation
– Graphics
– Feedback
– Reward
• Intrinsic motivation
– Challenge
– Control
– Curiosity
– Levels
– Cycle of engagement and reflection

11. Example – changing behaviour
• Tone discrimination
• Game mechanics
• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation