Preferred Strength of Noise Reduction for Normally Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Listeners.
Rolph Houben, Ilja Reinten, Wouter A Dreschler and 2 others
PMID 37990543WHAT IT FOUND
Listeners with more severe hearing loss tended to prefer stronger hearing-aid noise reduction, but preferences varied widely.
Three preset levels may be enough, and about 15 listening choices could identify most people's preference.
Key findings
01Hearing-loss category significantly affected preferred noise-reduction strength, and greater hearing loss was moderately correlated with greater preferred strength.
02Cluster analysis separated participants into three preference groups: six preferred no noise reduction, nine preferred an intermediate level, and 15 preferred a strong level.
03In a simulation, most participants in the first and third clusters were correctly classified after about 10 to 20 paired comparisons, but five participants did not reach even 50% probability.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Each hearing-loss group had only 10 participants, and two additional participants quit early and were not analysed. The study used one single-channel noise-reduction algorithm, four Dutch sentences, babble noise, one signal-to-noise ratio, and headphones rather than a hearing aid in daily life. The authors say the optimal noise-reduction levels apply only to the tested conditions and did not account for other non-linear processing such as compression. The fitting rule used for amplified signals was NAL-RP, and the authors say its influence on preference is unknown. Age differed between groups (mean ages 47, 61, and 67 years), although preferred strength was not significantly correlated with age. Speech reception threshold was missing for the first five normal-hearing participants because of a measurement mistake.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the hearing-loss correlation as a fitting rule. Preferred noise-reduction strength varied widely, and all three preference clusters contained some moderate-to-profound hearing-loss participants, so the audiogram alone cannot identify an individual's setting.