Real-time brain-controlled selective hearing enhances speech perception in multi-talker environments

Understanding speech in noisy environments is difficult for many people, and current hearing aids often fail because they amplify all sounds rather than the talker of interest. Auditory attention decoding (AAD) offers a potential solution by using the listener’s brain signals to identify and enhance the attended speaker, but it has been unclear whether this can provide real-time perceptual benefits. Here we used high-resolution intracranial electroencephalography in patients undergoing neurosurgical procedures to implement a closed-loop system that achieves the decoding fidelity necessary to dynamically amplify the attended talker. Across multiple experiments, the system improved speech intelligibility, reduced listening effort and was consistently preferred by subjects. It also tracked both instructed and self-initiated attention shifts. By providing direct evidence that a real-time, brain-controlled hearing system can enhance perception, this work establishes a key performance benchmark for future auditory brain–computer interfaces and advances AAD from a theoretical concept to a validated solution for personalized assistive hearing. This study shows that brain signals can identify and amplify the voice a person wants to hear in a crowded scene. Choudhari et al. provide evidence that brain-controlled hearing can improve speech perception and clarity in noisy environments.