Associations Between Auditory Working Memory, Self-Perceived Listening Effort, and Hearing Difficulty in Adults With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Objectives: Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) can have persistent effects in the auditory domain (e.g., difficulty listening in noise), despite individuals having normal pure-tone auditory sensitivity.

The relationship between extended high-frequency hearing and the binaural spatial advantage in young to middle-aged firefightersa).

Relationships between extended high-frequency (EHF) thresholds and speech-in-spatialized noise were examined in firefighters with a history of occupational noise and airborne toxin exposure. Speech recognition thresholds were measured for co-located and spatially separated (±90° azimuth) sentences in a competing signal using the Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences test. EHF hearing was significantly correlated with the spatial advantage, indicating that firefighters with poorer EHF thresholds experienced less benefit from spatial separation.

The Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on Binaural Processing in Young and Middle-Age Adults.

Purpose: This study examined the impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on self-perceived hearing and suprathreshold binaural processing in young and middle-age adults.

Method: Ninety-three adults with normal hearing (thresholds ≤ 25 dB HL, 250-4000 Hz) participated in one of four groups: 38 young adults, 23 young adults with TBI, 16 middle-age adults, and 16 middle-age adults with TBI. Self-perceived hearing difficulty was measured via questionnaires.