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

All 25 participants were normal-hearing adults aged 20–30; nothing here applies to hearing-impaired, older, or cognitively impaired listeners. Single session of about one hour with 8 blocks; fatigue or order effects across blocks cannot be ruled out despite counterbalancing. Only one level of room reverberation was tested (T30 = 0.49 s); the finding that it helped in quiet cannot be generalised to other reverberation times. The SNR was fixed at 0 dB; more adverse noise conditions might change the interaction pattern. The visual task was a simple left/right animal-picture decision; real-world visual distractions are more complex and variable. German-language stimuli; generalisability to other languages is untested. The sample size (25) was chosen by reference to prior studies rather than a formal power calculation for the specific interactions tested.

Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant No. 874724, Equal-Life). The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.

Do not read the room-effects finding as evidence that adding reverberation to a therapy room will reduce a patient's listening effort. The effect was observed at a single mild level (T30 = 0.49 s) in a virtual scene with normal-hearing 20–30-year-olds, it contradicts the FUEL model that most clinicians use, and the authors themselves call for replication across a range of reverberation times before any practical conclusion can be drawn. Likewise, the multitasking effect was measured with a simple visual left/right decision, not with the complex visual demands a patient faces in a real clinic or home.