The auditory system enables listeners to estimate the localization of auditory events resorting notably to individual binaural cues and room reflections reaching the eardrum. For hearing-impaired listeners using hearing aids, those cues are possibly distorted or not available in various situations such as remote microphone systems. This can make auditory distance evaluation a challenging task and often results in inside-the-head sound perception. The present study aims at evaluating the effect of several binaural rendering strategies on auditory externalization in hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners. Within a multiple-stimulus listening paradigm, normal-hearing and moderate-to-highly-profound hearing-impaired listeners were asked to rate the perceived distance of various stimuli presented over headphones, while visual cues were available. Results show that a degree of externalization can be achieved for most of the aided hearing-impaired listeners with a simple generic spatialization method and superimposed early reflections.
