Your hearing aids are programmed according to your audiogram and other testings that have been completed. As you all have been describing with your experiences, there is another part that has been missed when thinking about how a human being hears. Hearing is a complex process - as sounds strike the eardrum, the sounds (acoustic signals) begin to undergo a series of transformations through which the acoustic signals are changed into neural signals. These signs pass thru parts of the brain for additional analysis for recognition or processing. This detecting of presence of sound is only part of the ability of hearing that occurs in the auditory system. Some people have trouble have difficulty understanding conversations in noisy environments, following complex directions, difficulty learning new vocabulary words or foreign languages or communicate effectively because of a process called Central Auditory Processing Disorder. A person can appear to hear normally but their attention is not all there or they may have an 'auditory' problem. I was diagnosed with this disorder since I can hear but can't comprehend what I am hearing with or without my hearing aids. The gap of time ranges from 5 to 10 seconds of time - my history reflects this because my brain has to synthesize what is coming into my ears and damaged auditory nerves and then I have to figure out what has been said. Makes for a very confusing world. Eloise