Increased listening effort and cochlear neural degeneration underlie behavioral deficits in speech perception in noise in normal hearing middle-aged adults.

Middle-age is a critical period of rapid changes in brain function that presents an opportunity for early diagnostics and intervention for neurodegenerative conditions later in life. Hearing loss is one such early indicator linked to many comorbidities later in life. However, current clinical tests fail to capture hearing difficulties for ∼10% of middle-aged adults seeking help at hearing clinics.

Threshold Estimation and Speech Perception Under Hearing Loss Simulation: Examination of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator.

Purpose: Hearing loss simulation (HLS) has been recommended for clinical teaching and counseling of patients and their families, so that they can experience hearing impairment. However, few validated procedures for simulating hearing loss are available to instructors and practicing clinicians. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator (I-HeLPS) on reducing hearing sensitivity and word recognition to determine its adequacy for educational and clinical use.

Perceptual, procedural, and task learning for an auditory temporal discrimination task.

Perceptual learning reflects experience-driven improvements in the ability to detect changes in stimulus characteristics. The time course for perceptual learning overlaps with that for procedural learning (acquiring general skills and strategies) and task learning (learning the perceptual judgment specific to the task), making it difficult to isolate their individual effects. This study was conducted to examine the role of exposure to stimulus, procedure, and task information on learning for auditory temporal-interval discrimination.

PTSD Is Associated with Self-Perceived Hearing Handicap: An Evaluation of Comorbidities in Veterans Without Measured Hearing Loss.

Background:  Cases of self-reported hearing difficulty despite no traditionally measured hearing loss (pure tone audiometric thresholds ≤ 25 dB HL from 250 Hz through 8000 Hz) have risen with the return of Veterans from recent conflicts in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn. Auditory outcomes improved despite low compliance among those receiving treatment. Medical chart data appeared more comprehensive for Veterans with, rather than without, auditory complaints.