How Temporal Overlap in Task Processing and Acoustic Load Affect Listening Effort in Adults.

Trends in hearing · 2026 · Other · SLP
Julia Seitz, Jana R Berger, Maria Anastasia Sinarso, Janina Fels

In 25 normal-hearing young adults, splitting attention between listening and a visual task raised listening effort more than background speech noise did, even though word understanding stayed around 90%. Mild room echo in quiet actually lowered effort compared to a dead-silent room.

Key findings

1

Multi-talker babble significantly increased both response times on the word recognition task and subjective listening effort ratings compared to silence.

2

Shorter time intervals between a visual task and a listening task (0.05 s and 0.25 s versus 1.5 s or single task) significantly increased both response times and subjective effort ratings, even though speech intelligibility stayed high.

3

In quiet conditions, mild room reverberation (T30 = 0.49 s) produced significantly shorter response times than an anechoic environment, the opposite of what the FUEL model predicts.

MethodologyResultsClinical Relevance

Single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four participants were randomized across two intervention arms and assessed at twelve weeks for the primary outcome…

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