Efficient estimation of auditory sensitivity and cognitive status using spoken-digit tests.

项目摘要/摘要。未经治疗的年龄相关性听力损失(ARHL)是最普遍的 导致美国55岁及以上人群生活质量下降的原因。有3000万人 在这个国家有听力障碍的成年人，他们中的许多人从未接受过听力测试。一 原因是缺乏方便、廉价和有效的听力测试，这对双方都是可用的 个人和听力专业人士。该项目的目标是开发一系列测试 听力敏感度和相关的认知状态，共同衡量功能性听力损失。 如果这样的测试广泛可用，那么大量怀疑自己可能有听力的人 损失会让他们付出代价。这一点在一天内就有3000多个电话向 电话管理的国家听力测试(NHT)，没有商业推广，仅在 对几篇报纸文章的回应。语音三位数序列的识别 噪声背景，如在NHT中使用的，已被证明与传统的 纯音听力损失的测量。数字噪声(DIN)测试最近被证明是 筛查特别有效，因为它们可靠、方便，而且不需要声音 展位也没有训练有素的管理人员。一系列DIN测试将是 旨在帮助区分由于敏感度降低而导致的语音识别不良 反映认知加工能力减弱的认知能力。测试将在以下地点实施 搭载Android或iOS操作系统的智能手机、平板电脑、台式机和笔记本电脑。 早些时候为固定电话开发的NHT(Watson等人，2012年；Williams等人，2014年)， 自2014年以来，已有近13万名来电者接听。这些数据，加上700年的听力图 成年人(退伍军人)接受DIN测试和其他标准测听后，将 指导测试开发。可选的语音回答而不是键盘回答将成为测试内容 有运动控制问题的儿童和老年人都可以使用。验证研究将 在三所大学的听力中心对590名参与者进行测试。DIN敏感度测试将在 与纯音听力图有关，而认知状态测试将与已建立的比较 工作记忆、执行功能和选择性注意力的测试。 测听图斜率 将会是 通过比较使用低频掩蔽噪声和使用低频掩蔽噪声的DIN测试性能来估计 语音频谱噪声。这一新的测试系列将在各种平台上进行，旨在 在家庭、学校、初级保健医生办公室、听力诊所和嘈杂的环境中使用 做生意。这一系列筛查测试的广泛使用可以使个人了解 听力健康就像在浴室秤上称体重一样容易获得。

Project Summary/Abstract. Untreated age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is the most prevalent cause of reduced quality of life for persons 55 and older in the US. There are 30+ million hearing-impaired adults in this country, many of whom have never had a hearing test. One reason is the lack of convenient, inexpensive and valid hearing tests that are available to both individuals and hearing professionals. The goal of this project is to develop a family of tests of auditory sensitivity and of related cognitive status that together measure functional hearing loss. If such tests were widely available large numbers of those who suspect they may have hearing loss would take them. This was demonstrated by over 3000 calls in a single day to the telephone-administered National Hearing Test (NHT), without commercial promotion, only in response to a few newspaper articles. The identification of spoken three-digit sequences in a noise background, as used in the NHT, has been shown to correlate strongly with traditional pure-tone measures of hearing loss. Digit-in-noise (DIN) tests have recently been shown to be particularly efficient for screening, since they are reliable, convenient, and require neither sound booths nor highly trained personnel for their administration. A family of DIN tests will be designed to help distinguish poor speech recognition due to sensitivity loss from poor recognition that reflects reduced cognitive processing. The tests will be implemented on smartphones, tablets, desktop and laptop computers with Android or iOS operating systems. The NHT developed earlier for landline phones (Watson et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2014), has been taken by nearly 130,000 callers since 2014. Those data, plus audiograms from 700+ adults (veterans) who were given the DIN test together with other standard audiometry, will guide test development. Optional spoken rather than keypad responses will make the test accessible to children and to elderly adults with motor-control problems. Validation studies will test 590 participants in three university hearing centers. DIN sensitivity tests will be validated in relation to pure-tone audiograms, while cognitive-status tests will be compared to established tests of working memory, executive function, and selective attention. Audiogram slope will be estimated by comparing DIN-test performance using low-frequency masking noise, to that with speech-spectrum noise. This new family of tests on a variety of platforms, will be designed for use in the home, in schools, in primary-care physicians’ offices, in hearing clinics and in noisy businesses. Widespread use of this family of screening tests can make personal knowledge of hearing health as accessible as weighing oneself on the bathroom scale.