Who Said That? The Effect of Hearing Ability on Following Sequential Utterances From Varying Talkers in Noise.
Alexina Whitley, Timothy Beechey, Lauren V Hadley
PMID 39992084WHAT IT FOUND
Listeners with poorer hearing struggle most when the same person keeps talking, failing to use voice consistency as a cue.
They also confuse the previous speaker with background noise. This suggests their difficulty in conversations is not just about volume, but about separating voices.
Key findings
01Participants with poorer hearing had significantly lower accuracy on the second sentence in both noise and speech conditions, with a 38% reduction in odds of correct selection for each standard deviation increase in speech reception threshold in noise.
02The benefit of having the same talker was reduced in participants with poorer hearing; they did not show the same accuracy advantage for consistent voices as those with better hearing.
03Errors were primarily confusions with the masking sentence rather than missed words, indicating that stimuli were audible but difficult to segregate from competitors.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Online data collection prevented clinical audiometric assessment, relying instead on self-report and speech-in-noise thresholds. The task is artificial and does not replicate natural conversational dynamics, such as building on topics or responding. Simultaneous presentation of target and masker with uncertain target identity is unlike typical cocktail party listening. Participants were screened for hearing ability, which may not represent the full spectrum of hearing loss in clinical populations.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by UKRI and MRC grants.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that hearing aids alone will resolve these specific conversational difficulties. The study found that poorer hearing reduces the ability to use voice consistency as a cue, suggesting a processing deficit in segregating streams that amplification may not address. Additionally, age itself was not a significant predictor when hearing ability was accounted for, so do not attribute these findings purely to aging.