Measures of Listening Effort Are Multidimensional.
Sara Alhanbali, Piers Dawes, Rebecca E Millman and 1 others
PMID 30747742WHAT IT FOUND
Pupil size, brain activity, and self-report measures of listening effort do not correlate with each other.
They track separate dimensions of the listening experience. No single measure captures the whole picture, so clinicians should not expect different tests to agree.
Key findings
01Self-report, physiological, and behavioral measures of listening effort showed weak correlations with each other despite having good test-retest reliability.
02Factor analysis grouped nine different measures into four separate underlying factors, indicating that listening effort is multidimensional rather than a single construct.
03Skin conductance and the Visual Analog Scale of Fatigue had poor test-retest reliability and were excluded from the final analysis.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The statistical analysis used to group the measures had a low adequacy score, so the specific number of dimensions found should be treated with caution. The listening task was performed in a lab setting with noise levels that are often avoided in real life, which may not reflect everyday listening effort. Reaction time was not included in the final analysis because the task design made it difficult to separate listening effort from memory recall. The study did not determine what each of the four identified factors actually represents in terms of cognitive processes.
Declared interests
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lack of correlation between measures as evidence that the tests are unreliable. The study showed that most measures were consistent over time, but they tracked different independent dimensions of listening effort.