Machine Learning Challenges for Hearing Aids (Clarity-CEC2-2022)

12th December 2022, Virtual Workshop

The workshop is now over. Links to the papers and videos are now available on the programme page and results of the 2nd Clarity Enhancement Challenge are published on the results page.

One of the biggest challenges for hearing-impaired listeners is understanding speech in the presence of background noise. Everyday social noise levels can have a devastating impact on speech intelligibility. Inability to communicate effectively can lead to social withdrawal and isolation. Disabling hearing impairment affects 360 million people worldwide, with that number increasing because of the ageing population. Unfortunately, current hearing aid technology is often ineffective in noisy situations. Although amplification can restore audibility, it does not compensate fully for the effects of hearing loss.

The aim of this virtual workshop is to report on the 2nd Clarity Enhancement Challenge (CEC2), the second in a series of machine learning challenges targeted at helping those with a hearing impairment. CEC2 has increased the complexity beyond the previous CEC1 challenge by introducing more complex scenes with listener head movements and multiple speech, music and domestic noise sources. Systems are evaluated using both objective measures and listening tests.

The challenge was launched in March 2022 and ran until September 2022 and attracted the submission of 18 different systems from 7 separate teams. The results from CEC2 will be used in our next prediction challenge launching in spring 2023.

This virtual workshop will feature

• announcement of the challenge results
• presentations from participating teams
• a keynote talk
• award of prizes for best system
• a discussion of future directions for hearing aid machine learning challenges.

Programme details now available.

New! The CEC2 challenge is now closed but we are organising a follow-on challenge for ICASSP2023.
For details on how to participate click below.

Clarity-CEC2-2022 Workshop

Organisers

• Michael Akeroyd
  University of Nottingham
• Will Bailey
  University of Sheffield
• Jon Barker
  University of Sheffield
• Trevor Cox
  University of Salford
• John Culling
  University of Cardiff
• Simone Graetzer
  University of Salford
• Graham Naylor
  University of Nottingham
• Zuza Podwinska
  University of Salford
• Zehai Tu
  University of Sheffield
• Alice Tucker
  University of Sheffield
• More info

Invited Speakers

• Karolina Smeds
  ORCA Europe
• Stefan Petrausch
  WS Audiology
• More info

Dates

• Registration opens: 12th November
• More info