The relationship between the acceptance of noise and acoustic environments in young adults with normal hearing: a pilot study.

Background: The acceptable noise level (ANL) indicates how much background noise a listener is willing to accept while listening to speech. The clinical impact and application of the ANL measure is as a predictor of hearing-aid use. The ANL may also correlate with the percentage of time spent in different listening environments (i.e., quiet, noisy, noisy with speech present, etc). Information retrieved from data logging could confirm this relationship. Data logging, using sound scene analysis, is a method of monitoring the different characteristics of the listening environments that a hearing-aid user experiences during a period.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if the ANL procedure reflects the proportion of time a person spends in different acoustic environments.

Research Design: This was a descriptive quasi-experimental design to collect pilot data in which participants were asked to maintain their regular, daily activities while wearing a data-logging device.

Study Sample: After completing the ANL measurement, 29 normal-hearing listeners were provided a data-logging device and were instructed on its proper use.

Data Collection/analysis: ANL measures were obtained along with the percentage of time participants spent in listening environments classified as quiet, speech-in-quiet, speech-in-noise, and noise via a data-logging device.

Results: An analysis of variance using a general linear model indicated that listeners with low ANL values spent more time in acoustic environments in which background noise was present than did those with high ANL values; the ANL data did not indicate differences in how much time listeners spent in environments of differing intensities.

Conclusions: To some degree, the ANL is reflective of the acoustic environments and the amount of noise that the listener is willing to accept; data logging illustrates the acoustic environments in which the listener was present. Clinical implications include, but are not limited to, decisions in patient care regarding the need for additional counseling and/or the use of digital noise reduction and directional microphone technology.