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Eriksholm invited in the public for the Danish Science Festival

On the occasion of the Danish Science Festival, Eriksholm Research Centre had an open house event, where guests from the public got a chance to learn more about our research.

26/4-2018

A buzzing atmosphere filled the halls of Eriksholm on Wednesday.

Guests eager not to miss anything went around our venue to see for themselves what is actually going on inside the walls of our research centre in Snekkersten.

The occasion was The Danish Science Festival. Eriksholm contributed with an open house event, which allowed the guests to meet our researchers and clinicians – and see a research centre from the inside.

The guests visited different stations and especially the demonstrations of future hearing aid technology seemed to interest the crowd.

“The eye tracking demonstration was fascinating. I had no idea that was possible to do. It was incredible,” said visitor Annie Maltby, while enjoying a break and a cup of coffee between stations.

Knowledge about the future and the past

The research demonstration with the eye tracker is a step towards hearing aids which can enhance the voice of the person you are looking at. One of the guests were asked to sit in front of three loudspeakers, representing three people talking at the same time. An eye tracker followed his eyes, and whenever he looked at a specific loudspeaker, he would hear this sound louder. “I was able to hear a very clear difference,” as a guest concluded after trying the demo.

Aside from trying different tests, the guests also got a chance to talk to our research clinicians about how we work with test subjects, learn about how big data and artificial intelligence will shape future hearing aids, and get a guided tour through our hearing aid collection dating back a century.

“I thought the exhibition with all the old hearing aids was very exciting. It was interesting to see how the hearing aids developed throughout time,” said visitor Peter Larsen. 

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    An eye tracker picks up on what loudspeaker the guest i looking at. The computer makes the sound from that loudspeaker louder. This tecnology will hopefully help hearing aid users focus their hearing in future hearing aids.

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    The Eriksholm collection is one of the most complete hearing aids collections in the world.

Curiosity as driving factor

The Danish Science Festival is a national festival held every year to put focus on science and research. The aim is to engage the public in research, establish a meeting point between researchers and the public, and of course: to celebrate curiosity. Curiosity also seemed to be the primary driver for the guests visiting Eriksholm.

“I came here out of curiosity. I know the research centre is here, and know it has to do with hearing aids, but I didn’t know what exactly happened here until today,” says Peter Larsen, who lives in the local area.

The guests, many of them hearing aid users themselves, seemed quite engaged and asked many questions, which forced the researchers to think about their research in a different way.

The Ministry of Higher Education and Science is the primary organizeror of the whole festival, and it is comprised by almost 700 events around the country – among those the open house at Eriksholm Research Centre.


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    The guests were introduced to several tests run at Eriksholm. 
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    Researchers demonstrated how they measure the size of the pupils to find out how much effort a hearing aid user spend when listening.