System and method for neural hearing stimulation

A system for stimulation of a patient's ipsilateral cochlea, comprising

• at least two spaced apart microphones configured to be worn by the patient and configured to provide a first input audio signal and a second audio signal from ambient sound, respectively;
• a sound processor configured to generate an ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal in a plurality of output channels from at least one of the input audio signals;
• and
• a stimulation assembly configured to be implanted within the ipsilateral cochlea and having a plurality of stimulation channels for ipsilateral stimulation of the patient's hearing according to the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal,
• the sound processor comprising
• a direction of arrival (DOA) unit configured to periodically determine a main direction of incidence of ambient sound from a sound source by analyzing the first and second audio signals, and
• a directional information coding unit configured to code information concerning the determined main direction of incidence in the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal in manner so as to render said directional information perceivable by the patient in order to enable the patient to localize the sound source by ipsilateral cochlear stimulation;
• the directional information coding unit configured to code the information concerning the determined main direction of incidence in the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal by
• applying a spectral filtering to the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal depending on the determined main direction of incidence,
• applying an echo effect to the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal depending on the determined main direction of incidence,
• applying a phase-shifting to the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal depending on the determined main direction of incidence, or
• adding a speech sound to the ipsilateral auditory nerve stimulation signal, with a meaning of the speech sound depending on the determined main direction of incidence.