Digital hearing aid.

Phonak, Inc., introduces Digital hearing aid [Claro.sup.TM] a fully digital hearing computer combining new technology that replicates the way the individual wearer perceives sound with new automatic features that dramatically improve hearing in noisy environments. Available in both in-the-ear and behind-the-ear models, Claro employs a proprietary system called Digital Perception [Processing.sup.TM] that incorporates psychoacoustic perception models of the ear in a computer chip for the first time. This system integrates 20 overlapping bands of sound corresponding with the 20 critical bands by which the cochlea processes sound in the speech frequencies.

Claro automatically adjusts to quiet and noisy environments and makes noise reduction automatic. It also controls loudness to eliminate the over- and underamplification of conventional hearing systems, and it continuously monitors the speech-to-noise ratio to intelligently adjust the amplification in bands where background noise is overwhelming speech. Rather than simply converting and amplifying physical sound, Digital Perception Processing enables Claro to mimic the human hearing system.