Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as a Measure of Listening Effort in Older Adults Who Use Hearing Aids.
Joseph Rovetti, Huiwen Goy, M Kathleen Pichora-Fuller and 1 others
PMID 31722613WHAT IT FOUND
For 16 older hearing aid users, wearing aids did not reduce oxygenation in the front of the brain, reaction time, self-reported effort, or accuracy during a listening task.
The brain measure still tracked difficulty, rising as the memory task got harder.
Key findings
01Overall prefrontal oxygenation increased as the memory task became harder, and visual and auditory versions did not differ.
02Hearing aid use did not affect overall prefrontal oxygenation, reaction time, self-reported effort, or accuracy.
03In an exploratory analysis, hearing aid benefit for oxygenation in the left lateral prefrontal subregion was positively correlated with pure-tone average and age.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 16 participants were analysed. The authors state the study was likely underpowered to detect medium-sized effects. The task used spoken consonant names in quiet, not speech in noise, so it may not reflect everyday listening. Stimuli were set at 35 dB SL above pure-tone average, which may have reduced room for hearing aids to lower effort. Participants used their own hearing aids at self-chosen settings. This added variability. fNIRS has limited spatial resolution and penetration depth, so it could not target precise cortical regions or deeper structures.
Declared interests
The funder names are the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Sonova AG. The supplied text does not report author disclosures or a sponsor role in design, analysis, or writing.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hearing aids never reduce listening effort. The study found no overall effect on prefrontal oxygenation, reaction time, self-reported effort, or accuracy, but it analysed only 16 participants and was likely underpowered. It also used spoken consonant names in quiet rather than speech in noise.