T. Gross et al. (Eds.): INTERACT 2009, Part I, LNCS 5726, pp. 19–35, 2009. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2009 The Attentive Hearing Aid: Eye Selection of Auditory Sources for Hearing Impaired Users Jamie Hart, Dumitru Onceanu, Changuk Sohn, Doug Wightman, and Roel Vertegaal Human Media Lab Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario Canada K7L 3N6 Abstract. An often-heard complaint about hearing aids is that their amplification of environmental noise makes it difficult for users to focus on one particular speaker. In this paper, we present a new prototype Attentive Hearing Aid (AHA) based on ViewPointer, a wearable calibration-free eye tracker. With AHA, users need only look at the person they are listening to, to amplify that voice in their hearing aid. We present a preliminary evaluation of the use of eye input by hearing impaired users for switching between simultaneous speakers. We compared eye input with manual source selection through pointing and remote control buttons. Results show eye input was 73% faster than selection by pointing and 58% faster than button selection. In terms of recall of the material presented, eye input performed 80% better than traditional hearing aids, 54% better than buttons, and 37% better than pointing. Participants rated eye input as highest in the “easiest”, “most natural”, and “best overall” categories. Keywords: Eye Tracking, Attentive User Interface, Assistive Technology, Hearing Impairment, Input Devices, Multi-Modal Input. 1 Introduction The most common reason cited by hearing impaired individuals for rejecting the use of a hearing aid is intolerance of the large amount of background noise associated with such devices [14]. Traditional hearing aids amplify all sounds in the user’s environment, whether the user is interested in them or not [5]. The problem of unwanted background noise has been shown to result in the avoidance of social situations, as well as negative physiological and psychological behavioral changes in users [15]. Over 80% of potential hearing aid wearers opt out of using a hearing aid altogether, reporting this as their chief reason [14]. Our Attentive Hearing Aid project hopes to address this problem by allowing users to target only the voices they wish to listen to, while attenuating background noise. The technology behind AHA is based on ViewPointer calibration-free eye tracking [28]. It features a small wearable camera pointed at the eyes, which senses when users are looking at one of several infrared tags. These tags are mounted on lapel microphones that are handed out and worn by interlocutors during a conversation. It is