Emotional Responses to Non-Speech Sounds for Hearing-aid and Bimodal Cochlear-Implant Listeners.
Marina M Tawdrous, Kristen L D'Onofrio, René Gifford and 1 others
PMID 35435773WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with hearing loss rated everyday sounds as less pleasant and less unpleasant than normal-hearing peers, even with devices.
Adding a hearing aid to a cochlear implant user’s other ear did not improve these emotional ratings and sometimes lowered them.
Key findings
01Listeners with hearing loss rated pleasant sounds as less pleasant and unpleasant sounds as less unpleasant than normal-hearing listeners.
02For bimodal cochlear-implant listeners, ratings of valence were higher when using the implant alone compared to using the implant plus a hearing aid.
03For hearing aid candidates, there was no difference in emotional ratings between using one hearing aid and using two.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study did not compare aided listening to unaided listening, so it is unclear if devices help or hinder emotional responses compared to having no hearing aid. Participants used research hearing aids rather than their own, and some had no prior experience with these specific settings. The groups were not perfectly matched for age or gender, which could influence emotional ratings. The sound samples included music, but there were too few music sounds to determine if emotional responses to music differ from other non-speech sounds.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Sonova AG, the Dan and Margaret Maddox Charitable Foundation, and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that adding a hearing aid to a cochlear implant user's other ear will improve their emotional experience of sound. The study found that bimodal users rated sounds as less pleasant when using both devices compared to using the implant alone.