The human brain is remarkably effective at tuning into certain sounds in noisy settings. But this can be challenging for those with hearing deficits because traditional hearing aids typically amplify all sounds in an environment. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley are developing a hearing aid that would process sound the way the brain does.

"One of the things that people that wear hearing aids complain about is if you go into crowded places, that all the sounds are amplified, right, and it becomes really uncomfortable. It doesn't make the task of listening to the person next to you any easier. What our algorithm is doing is more in the realm of getting rid of the background noise and extracting the signal and the idea is that—signals such as speech have a signature which is different than the background sound."

Neuroscientist Frederic Theunissen adds that although testing is still in its early stages, he hopes that the hearing aid will be commercially available in the future.

"It’d be wonderful to be able to help people that have hearing difficulties and really design something that they’re happy to wear in conditions where they’re not happy to wear it now."