Hearing Aid HA algorithms need to be tuned “fitted” to match the impairment of each specific patient. The lack of a fundamental HA fitting theory is a strong contributing factor to an unsatisfying sound experience for about 20 of HA patients. This paper proposes a probabilistic modeling approach to the design of HA algorithms. The proposed method relies on a generative probabilistic model for the hearing loss problem and provides for automated inference of the corresponding 1 signal processing algorithm, 2 the fitting solution as well as 3 a principled performance evaluation metric. All three tasks are realized as message passing algorithms in a factor graph representation of the generative model, which in principle allows for fast implementation on HA or mobile device hardware. The methods are theoretically worked out and simulated with a custom-built factor graph toolbox for a specific hearing loss model.
The encompassing prior approach to nested model comparison is described in @cite_36 . More discussion on Bayesian methods for comparing constrained models are available in @cite_5 , @cite_27 and @cite_26 .
@cite_36 @cite_5 @cite_27 @cite_26
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An encompassing prior (EP) approach to facilitate Bayesian model selection for nested models with inequality constraints has been previously proposed. In this approach, samples are drawn from the prior and posterior distributions of an encompassing model that contains an inequality restricted version as a special case. The Bayes factor in favor of the inequality restriction then simplifies to the ratio of the proportions of posterior and prior samples consistent with the inequality restriction. This formalism has been applied almost exclusively to models with inequality or ''about equality'' constraints. It is shown that the EP approach naturally extends to exact equality constraints by considering the ratio of the heights for the posterior and prior distributions at the point that is subject to test (i.e., the Savage-Dickey density ratio). The EP approach generalizes the Savage-Dickey ratio method, and can accommodate both inequality and exact equality constraints. The general EP approach is found to be a computationally efficient procedure to calculate Bayes factors for nested models. However, the EP approach to exact equality constraints is vulnerable to the Borel-Kolmogorov paradox, the consequences of which warrant careful consideration. This paper deals with Bayesian selection of models that can be specified using inequality constraints among the model parameters. The concept of encompassing priors is introduced, that is, a prior distribution for an unconstrained model from which the prior distributions of the constrained models can be derived. It is shown that the Bayes factor for the encompassing and a constrained model has a very nice interpretation: it is the ratio of the proportion of the prior and posterior distribution of the encompassing model in agreement with the constrained model. It is also shown that, for a specific class of models, selection based on encompassing priors will render a virtually objective selection procedure. The paper concludes with three illustrative examples: an analysis of variance with ordered means; a contingency table analysis with ordered odds-ratios; and a multilevel model with ordered slopes. 1 Inequality constrained statistical models Researchers often have one or more (competing) theories about their field of research. Consider, for example, theories about the effect of behavioral therapy versus medication for children with an attention deficit disorder (ADD). Some researchers in this area believe medication is the only effective treatment for ADD, some believe strongly in behavioral therapy, and others may expect an additive effect of both therapies. To test or compare the plausibility of these theories they need to be translated into statistical models. Subsequently, empirical data can be used to determine which model is best. Inequality constraints on model parameters can be useful in the specification of statistical models. This paper deals with competing models that have the same parameter vector, but in one or more of the models parameters are subjected to inequality constraints. To continue the example, consider an experiment where children with ADD are randomly assigned to one of four conditions: no treatment (1), behavioral therapy (2), medication (3), and behavioral therapy plus medication (4). Let the outcome Three Bayesian related approaches, namely, variational Bayesian (VB), minimum message length (MML) and Bayesian Ying-Yang (BYY) harmony learning, have been applied to automatically determining an appropriate number of components during learning Gaussian mixture model (GMM). This paper aims to provide a comparative investigation on these approaches with not only a Jeffreys prior but also a conjugate Dirichlet-Normal-Wishart (DNW) prior on GMM. In addition to adopting the existing algorithms either directly or with some modifications, the algorithm for VB with Jeffreys prior and the algorithm for BYY with DNW prior are developed in this paper to fill the missing gap. The performances of automatic model selection are evaluated through extensive experiments, with several empirical findings: 1) Considering priors merely on the mixing weights, each of three approaches makes biased mistakes, while considering priors on all the parameters of GMM makes each approach reduce its bias and also improve its performance. 2) As Jeffreys prior is replaced by the DNW prior, all the three approaches improve their performances. Moreover, Jeffreys prior makes MML slightly better than VB, while the DNW prior makes VB better than MML. 3) As the hyperparameters of DNW prior are further optimized by each of its own learning principle, BYY improves its performances while VB and MML deteriorate their performances when there are too many free hyper-parameters. Actually, VB and MML lack a good guide for optimizing the hyper-parameters of DNW prior. 4) BYY considerably outperforms both VB and MML for any type of priors and whether hyper-parameters are optimized. Being different from VB and MML that rely on appropriate priors to perform model selection, BYY does not highly depend on the type of priors. It has model selection ability even without priors and performs already very well with Jeffreys prior, and incrementally improves as Jeffreys prior is replaced by the DNW prior. Finally, all algorithms are applied on the Berkeley segmentation database of real world images. Again, BYY considerably outperforms both VB and MML, especially in detecting the objects of interest from a confusing background. Summary In this paper we propose, survey and compare some classes of probability densities that may be used to represent partial prior information, to model either prior ignorance or Bayesian sensitivity analysis. We distinguish two types of models appropriate for two different situations: near ignorance models which are suitable in problems where there is little prior information, and neighbourhood models, which can be used to 'robustify' a strict Bayesian analysis in problems where there is substantial prior information about location. We argue that, especially for the first situation, a reasonable class of prior densities is not the same as a class of reasonable prior densities. We discuss various desiderata for a 'reasonable' class, including coherence and sensible dependence of inferences on sample size. The translation invariant models studied here are classes of conjugate priors, classes of double exponential densities and a neighbourhood of the uniform prior. Of the neighbourhood models we examine examples of E-contamination neighbourhoods (previously studied by Huber, Berger and Berliner) and intervals of measures (DeRobertis and Hartigan). We illustrate the models in the simple problem of constructing credible intervals for an unknown normal mean. Of the models studied in detail, a translation-invariant class of double exponential priors is favoured for modelling little prior information, and a type of interval of measures seems most suitable for robust Bayesian analysis.