Abstract
Twenty-two patients with bilateral, symmetrical, perceptive hearing loss were examined in an anechoic room. The ability to locate a sound source was measured both while wearing 2 behind-the-ear hearing aids fitted with directional microphone, and wearing 2 behind-the-ear hearing aids fitted with conventional microphone. Only small differences were found between the results for the 2 microphone types, and it was not possible to demonstrate any convincing improvement in directional hearing by the use of directional microphones. These findings do not, of course, preclude the advantage of directional microphones reported in the literature: enhancement of speech discrimination in noisly surroundings.