Acoustically Transparent Hearing Aids Increase Physiological Markers of Listening Effort.
Markus Kemper, Florian Denk, Hendrik Husstedt and 1 others
PMID 40179130WHAT IT FOUND
Transparent hearing aids increased physiological markers of listening effort in normal-hearing listeners, even though they did not significantly worsen self-reported effort.
Speech intelligibility declined slightly, but the brain and eye responses showed a much larger increase in cognitive load.
Key findings
01Using transparent hearing aids significantly increased pupil size and parietal alpha power, indicating higher invested listening effort.
02Speech intelligibility was significantly reduced by the hearing aids, but self-reported listening effort showed no significant difference.
03Physiological measures of effort were more sensitive to the hearing aid disadvantage than speech intelligibility or subjective ratings.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study only included young, normal-hearing adults, so the results may not apply to older adults or those with significant hearing loss where amplification benefits outweigh these disadvantages. The 'transparent' setting was achieved with a research device; commercial hearing aids may have different processing delays or frequency responses that alter the magnitude of the effect. The sample size was small (N=19), and the study was a controlled laboratory experiment rather than a real-world usage trial.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hearing aids are harmful for all patients. This effect was observed in normal-hearing listeners using a device set to zero amplification, where the disadvantages of the device (distortions, delays) were not offset by the benefits of clearer sound. For patients with hearing loss, amplification typically improves intelligibility enough to reduce overall effort.