Cognitive benefits of the AI-powered noise reduction feature in Infinio

Have you ever struggled to keep up with a fast-paced conversation, finding it hard to process what’s being said in real time? This is an example of cognitive processing speed – how quickly your brain takes in, interprets, and responds to information. It plays a crucial role in understanding instructions, solving problems, and completing tasks efficiently.

Similarly, have you ever struggled to focus on one task while ignoring distractions and suppressing automatic responses — like when you’re following GPS directions in a busy area, and the street sign says, “Left turn only,” but the GPS says, “Turn right”? This relates to cognitive interference control, where the brain needs to suppress conflicting or outdated information in order to focus on what’s currently relevant.

Also, we’ve all had the experience of holding several pieces of information in our minds at once, like remembering a shopping list. The amount we can retain in our short-term memory is known as our working memory capacity.

These scenarios highlight three key cognitive functions: processing speed, interference handling and working memory– all of which are especially important when trying to follow conversations in noisy environments.

A solution designed to help: Spheric Speech Clarity

Phonak introduced Spheric Speech Clarity (SSC), an advanced noise reduction feature, with the launch of the Infinio platform. This technology uses deep neural networks (DNN) specifically designed to extract speech from noisy environments.

And according to a recent study, SSC does help. It showed that participants were better able to control interference and retain more information when SSC was active — suggesting that SSC supports key cognitive functions in noisy environments.

Why this matters for people with hearing loss

In everyday life, hearing aid users often need to focus on one voice while ignoring background chatter — or remember verbal instructions in noisy settings like cafés or group gatherings. When listening in noise, the brain has to devote some cognitive resources to separating out speech from background noise. This leaves fewer resources available to understand, remember, and work with the information carried in the speech.

When technology, like SSC, reduces this noise, it may free up the brain to do more with the actual content of the conversation. In part two of this series, we take a closer look at how the study was designed and what the results suggest for cognitive performance in noise. [Link to part 2]

We invite you to read the study findings in the Field Study News on the Phonak Evidence Page. Link

To learn more about Phonak Audéo Sphere Infinio, we invite you to visit the Phonak website.