Background And Objective: Besides speech intelligibility, subjective listening effort is an important outcome for the success of hearing devices and their signal processing. The aim of the present study was to determine subjective listening effort for speech in a noisy background in patients with the active middle ear implant Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB) for omnidirectional and directional microphone settings, with and without occlusion of the contralateral ear.
Material And Methods: A total of 15 patients using a VSB were measured using the adaptive categorical listening effort scaling (ACALES) method in a ring of loudspeakers placed in an anechoic room. Different background noises from different directions and simultaneously presented sentences from the Oldenburg sentence test were combined in four different realistic acoustic scenes.
Results: The directional microphone program reduced median subjective listening effort only numerically compared to the omnidirectional microphone program in acoustic scenarios with diffuse noise and with low signal-to-noise ratios; however, this difference failed to reach statistical significance. When occluding the ear contralateral to the VSB, all investigated listening effort categories were measured at significantly higher signal-to-noise ratios than with access to both ears.
Conclusion: Due to missing statistical significance in reduction of listening effort, this study delivered no recommendation for or against usage of the directional microphone program; however, reduced listening effort was shown for binaural listening in comparison to monaural listening. Therefore, patients should be encouraged to always listen with both ears for best results.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10234921 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00106-022-01223-4 | DOI Listing |
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
January 2025
Hearing Aid Laboratory, Northwestern University, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Evanston, IL, USA.
Listeners often find themselves in scenarios where speech is disrupted, misperceived, or otherwise difficult to recognize. In these situations, many individuals report exerting additional effort to understand speech, even when repairing speech may be difficult or impossible. This investigation aimed to characterize cognitive effort across time during both sentence listening and a post-sentence retention interval by observing the pupillary response of participants with normal to borderline normal hearing in response to two interrupted speech conditions: sentences interrupted by gaps of silence or bursts of noise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Audiol
January 2025
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands.
Objective: Measuring listening effort using pupillometry is challenging in cochlear implant (CI) users. We assess three validated speech tests (Matrix, LIST, and DIN) to identify the optimal speech material for measuring peak-pupil-dilation (PPD) in CI users as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
Design: Speech tests were administered in quiet and two noisy conditions, namely at the speech recognition threshold (0 dB re SRT), i.
Int J Nurs Sci
September 2024
Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Objective: Network analysis was used to explore the complex inter-relationships between social participation activities and depressive symptoms among the Chinese older population, and the differences in network structures among different genders, age groups, and urban-rural residency would be compared.
Methods: Based on the 2018 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), 12,043 people aged 65 to 105 were included. The 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale was used to assess depressive symptoms and 10 types of social participation activities were collected, including housework, tai-chi, square dancing, visiting and interacting with friends, garden work, reading newspapers or books, raising domestic animals, playing cards or mahjong, watching TV or listening to radio, and organized social activities.
BMJ Open
December 2024
National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Introduction: Individuals with hearing loss and hearing aid users report higher levels of listening effort and fatigue in daily life compared with those with normal hearing. However, there is a lack of objective measures to evaluate these experiences in real-world settings. Recent studies have found that higher sound pressure levels (SPL) and lower signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) are linked to increased heart rate and decreased heart rate variability, reflecting the greater effort required to process auditory information.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Speech Lang Pathol
January 2025
Good Samaritan Medical Center Foundation, Lafayette, CO.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to gauge the impacts of cognitive empathy training experiential learning on traumatic brain injury (TBI) knowledge, awareness, confidence, and empathy in a pilot study of speech-language pathology graduate students.
Method: A descriptive quasi-experimental convergent parallel mixed methods design intervention pilot study (QUAL + QUANT) was conducted with a diverse convenience sample of 19 first- and second-year speech-language pathology graduate students who engaged in a half-day TBI point-of-view simulation. The simulation was co-constructed through a participatory design with those living with TBI based on Kolb's experiential learning model and followed the recommendations for point-of-view simulation ethics.
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!