Psychometric Functions of Dual-Task Paradigms for Measuring Listening Effort.
Yu-Hsiang Wu, Elizabeth Stangl, Xuyang Zhang and 2 others
PMID 27438866WHAT IT FOUND
Secondary-task reaction time did not simply worsen as speech got harder.
It peaked at intermediate difficulty and shortened at very poor noise levels, in younger and older listeners.
Key findings
01For younger adults, secondary-task reaction time increased as speech moved from easy to intermediate difficulty, then decreased as speech became very hard.
02Older adults with hearing impairment showed the same peaked reaction-time pattern, with the peak at -2 dB relative to their individual SNR-50.
03Self-reported listening effort also had a peaked shape, and in Experiment 1 participants reported more effort in the easy than the hard dual-task measure.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This was a laboratory measurement study, not a trial of a treatment, so it cannot show whether an intervention changes listening effort. Only 24 younger adults completed Experiment 1, 24 older adults completed Experiment 2, and 25 younger adults completed Experiment 3; many participants were college students and native English speakers. Two younger adults in Experiment 1 did not complete the study because of a time conflict. Individual reaction-time curves varied considerably, and the peaked pattern did not hold for every participant. Self-reported effort was not collected in Experiment 3 because SNR order was randomized. The authors note that the peaked shape may not generalize to all dual-task listening effort measures.
Declared interests
Yu-Hsiang Wu is currently receiving grants from NIH and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The remaining authors declared no conflicts. Experiments 1 and 2 were supported by the New Century Scholars Research Grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. Experiment 3 was supported by NIH/NIDCD grants R03DC012551 and R01-DC012769. The pilot study was supported by a research grant from Siemens Hearing Instruments.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that shorter secondary-task reaction time at very poor signal-to-noise ratios means lower listening effort. The paper found reaction time peaked at intermediate difficulty and then decreased, so the measure is not a straight scale across all listening conditions.