Effects of Environment Complexity on Listening Performance in Adult Hearing Aid Users

环境复杂性对成人助听器使用者听力表现的影响

• 批准号: 10300006
• 负责人: Erik Jorgen Jorgensen
• 金额: $ 7.31万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-10 至 2022-08-21
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10300006
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Adoption; Adult; Affect; American; Anxiety; Attention; Audiology; Auditory; Cellular Phone; Clinical; Clinical Engineering; Cognition; Communication; Complex; Data; Dementia; Development; Diffuse; Dimensions; Effectiveness; Engineering; Entropy; Environment; Goals; Health; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Information Theory; Intervention; Laboratories; Measures; Mental Depression; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Noise; Outcome; Participant; Perception; Performance; Process; Property; Public Health; Quality of life; Records; Research; Restaurants; Risk; Role; Short-Term Memory; Signal Transduction; Social isolation; Source; Speech Perception; Strategic Planning; Surveys; System; Technology; Testing; Time; United States National Institutes of Health; Work; cognitive ability; cognitive function; cognitive load; computerized data processing; design; executive function; experimental study; hearing impairment; improved; insight; interest; microphone; mortality; novel strategies; processing speed; response; satisfaction; sound; standard measure; theories; time use

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Hearing loss is the second most common health condition among adults. Untreated hearing loss is associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, social isolation, dementia, and all-cause mortality. Despite this, only 14% of people who would benefit from hearing aids use them. The most common reason adults give for not using hearing aids is that hearing aids do not help them in the very situations they struggle to hear in the most—complex listening environments (CLEs). CLEs are places with many different sound sources, like restaurants. Indeed, restaurants are the most difficult listening environments for the majority of adults with hearing loss. Hearing aid technologies that are designed to improve speech perception in noise, such as noise reduction and directional microphones, show some modest benefits when tested in a laboratory environment. In the real world, however, these technologies show no benefits. Hearing aids can therefore demonstrate efficacy (how well they can work in the best possible scenario, i.e., in a laboratory test), but fail to be effective (how well they work in the real world). We propose that listening environment complexity differences between the lab and the real world drives the hearing aid efficacy-effectiveness gap. We further propose that the effect of environment complexity on listening performance is moderated by cognitive ability, and the benefit of hearing aid features on listening performance is moderated by environment complexity. Our aims are designed to test these hypotheses in the laboratory using controlled experimental paradigms, as well as in the real world using field experiments. The proposed study is informed by information theory, which defines complexity as the amount of information in a communication system. Under this theory, complexity can be measured using entropy to quantify how much information is in the system. Our team will apply this framework to understanding communication in real world CLEs. In Aim 1, we characterize the relationship between complexity, cognitive ability, and hearing aid feature efficacy in the lab using a controlled experimental paradigm. In Aim 2, we characterize the relationship between complexity, cognitive ability, and hearing aid feature effectiveness in the real world using smartphones to record real world environments and deliver surveys to participants, as well as experimental hearing aids that record how features process signals in real-time. The findings from this study will: enhance our understanding of how hearing aid users perceive real world CLEs, extend information theory to quantify the complexity of real world CLEs and its effect on listening performance, provide important insight into the factors that underlie the hearing aid efficacy- effectiveness gap, and provide groundwork that may help guide developments to close the efficacy-effectiveness gap through clinical and engineering approaches. The proposed study directly addresses the NIH/NIDCD's strategic plan priorities to increase our understanding of the interactions among auditory and cognitive functions to help explain perception in real world listening environments and improve hearing aid performance in background noise and real environments.

项目摘要/摘要 听力损失是成年人中第二常见的健康状况。未经治疗的听力损失与 抑郁，焦虑，社会隔离，痴呆和全因死亡率的风险增加。尽管如此， 从助听器中受益的人中，只有14％使用它们。成年人给予的最常见原因 不使用助听器的是，助听器在他们难以听到的情况下没有帮助他们 大多数 - 复杂的听力环境（CLE）。 CLE是具有许多不同声音来源的地方，例如 餐馆。确实，餐馆是大多数成年人的最困难的听力环境 听力损失。旨在改善噪声中语音感知的助听器技术，例如噪声 减少和定向麦克风，在实验室环境中测试时会显示出一些适度的好处。 但是，在现实世界中，这些技术没有任何好处。因此，助听器可以证明 效率（在最佳情况下，他们在实验室测试中的表现如何），但无法有效 （他们在现实世界中的表现如何）。我们建议聆听环境的复杂性差异 实验室和现实世界驱动了助听器有效性差距。我们进一步建议 认知能力和助听器的好处可以调节聆听表现的环境复杂性 聆听性能的功能由环境复杂性调节。我们的目标旨在测试这些 使用受控的实验范式以及现实世界中的实验室中的假设 实验。拟议的研究通过信息理论告知，该研究将复杂性定义为 通信系统中的信息。在这一理论下，可以使用熵来量化复杂性 系统中有多少信息。我们的团队将把这个框架应用于真实的沟通 世界cles。在AIM 1中，我们表征了复杂性，认知能力和助听器功能之间的关系 使用受控的实验范式在实验室中的功效。在AIM 2中，我们表征了 使用智能手机记录真实的复杂性，认知能力和助听器功能有效性 世界环境并向参与者进行调查，以及记录如何记录的实验助听器 实时功能流程信号。这项研究的发现将：增强我们对听力的理解 援助用户感知现实世界，扩展信息理论，以量化现实世界的复杂性及 对听力表现的影响，提供对助听器效率构成的因素的重要见解 - 有效性差距，并提供基础，可以帮助指导发展以弥补有效性效果 通过临床和工程方法差距。拟议的研究直接解决了NIH/NIDCD 战略计划的优先事项，以增加我们对听觉和认知之间互动的理解 有助于解释现实世界中听力环境的感知并提高助听器表现的功能 在背景噪声和真实环境中。