The Effects of Hearing-Aid Amplification and Noise on Conversational Dynamics Between Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Talkers.
Eline Borch Petersen, Ewen N MacDonald, A Josefine Munch Sørensen
PMID 35862280WHAT IT FOUND
Background noise made conversations slower, louder, more variable and more effortful.
Hearing-aid amplification lowered speech level by 1.1 dB in quiet and made older hearing-impaired speakers start turns 41 ms sooner.
Key findings
01Background noise made participants start their next turn 69 ms later and increased turn-taking variability by 118 ms.
02When hearing-impaired participants were aided, their typical turn-start time was 41 ms shorter relative to normal-hearing participants.
03In noise, participants rated conversational success 1.9 points lower and desire to improve the situation 7.5 points higher on 0 to 10 scales.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 11 pairs were studied, and data collection stopped early because of COVID-19 restrictions, so the sample was smaller than planned. Hearing status and age were confounded: the hearing-impaired participants were older than the normal-hearing participants, so some differences could reflect age rather than hearing loss. The paper tested many conversational measures and did not adjust for multiple comparisons, so borderline significant effects should be read cautiously. The unaided condition used hearing aids with receivers removed and a near-0 dB-gain program, not a completely device-free state. Closed hearing-aid fittings and own-voice processing could change how wearers heard their own voice, which could affect speech levels. A fifth directional condition was excluded because technical issues made it too similar to the omni-directional condition. Subjective effort and conversational success ratings were not well understood, and the authors could not rule out chronic stress or fatigue as influences.
Declared interests
One author, Eline Borch Petersen, is employed by WS Audiology, a hearing-aid company. The authors reported no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hearing aids improve conversational success. The study found no significant effect of hearing status on rated conversational success, and the amplification results were changes in turn timing, speech level, and articulation rate measured in a spot-the-difference task with 11 pairs.