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Anacusis, or hearing loss, is a common disability, with approximately 15% (36 million) of American adults reporting significant impairment in their hearing. Assistive listening device, including hearing aids and cochlear implants, are a commonly used solution to hearing loss. While such devices symptomatically address hearing loss under idealized listening conditions, they perform less well in realistic conditions due to their amplification of both signal and ubiquitous background noise (Humes et al. 1997; Larson et al. 2000; Humes et al. 2002; Spahr and Dorman 2004). Furthermore, while hearing loss often entails spatial hearing deficits, i.e., a reduced ability to determine the spatial location of a sound source, there are no specifically designed spatial auditory tasks which train people with hearing loss. Moreover, while most cases of hearing loss can be attributed to age related auditory degradation, as many as 5% of school aged children suffer from Central Auditory Processing Disorder (any neurological disorder which is characterized by dysfunctional auditory processing by the brain), often presenting as spatial hearing loss.

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