The Presence of Another Individual Influences Listening Effort, But Not Performance.
Hidde Pielage, Adriana A Zekveld, Gabrielle H Saunders and 3 others
PMID 33795615WHAT IT FOUND
Young people with normal hearing showed increased pupil dilation, suggesting higher listening effort, when performing a speech-in-noise task in the presence of another person.
However, their actual speech perception performance did not change. The effort increase was most apparent when the partner joined at the start.
Key findings
01Listening effort, measured by peak pupil dilation, was significantly higher when participants performed the task in the presence of another individual compared to alone.
02Speech perception performance (SRTs) did not differ between the alone and together conditions, indicating the extra effort did not improve accuracy.
03The increase in effort was dependent on the order of conditions, appearing primarily when participants started the experiment together with the other person.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used young adults (mean age 24.1 years) with normal hearing, so results may not generalize to older adults or those with hearing impairment. The 'social' context was minimal (a stranger sitting nearby), which lacks the ecological validity of real-world conversations. Pupil dilation may reflect arousal or social attention rather than pure cognitive effort, and the authors note this ambiguity. The effect of copresence was inconsistent across participants depending on the order of testing, suggesting the finding is not robust across all conditions.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by a grant from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that social presence improves communication. While effort increased, performance did not. Also, do not assume this applies to patients with hearing loss, as the study was conducted entirely on young people with normal hearing.