Development of radio and television receiver with functions to assist hearing of elderly people

Elderly people often find that the speech of contemporary broadcasts is too fast for comfortable listening. We have developed a new radio and television receiver that enables users to reduce the speed of speech delivery while maintaining the voice pitch and quality, without overrunning the entire program time slot. Practical assessments by elderly people have confirmed its effectiveness for hearing comfort. In addition to this function, efficacious sound level compression technology is also incorporated to compensate for the so-called "recruitment phenomenon".