How difficult is difficult? Speech perception in noise in the elderly hearing impaired
-
Limor Lavie
,
Karen Banai
Abstract
Background: Perception of speech in the presence of competing multitalker noise is difficult for most individuals with sensory hearing loss, and in particular, for the elderly hearing impaired. Elderly people frequently report that these difficulties are poorly compensated for by hearing aids, albeit the algorithms and technologies aiming to improve speech perception in noise. The aim of the current study was therefore to assess competing speech signals processing by measuring the amount of signal to noise ratio (SNR) loss experienced by elderly hearing impaired individuals and their performance in dichotic listening tests.
Methods: Speech in multitalker babble noise and dichotic listening were assessed in older hearing impaired individuals and in young normal-hearing adults.
Results: The average dichotic scores in the elderly group were substantially and significantly lower compared with the scores of the younger group with a significant right ear advantage (higher accuracy in reporting words arriving at the right ear than words arriving at the left ear) in the elderly group. Speech identification in noise in the older group was significantly poorer than in the younger group (SNR loss: 10 dB).
Conclusions: The poor performance in the elderly hearing impaired group highlights the difficulties faced by hearing impaired older adults in demanding listening environments. Our results suggest that it may be unreasonable to expect that elderly hearing impaired individuals may fully understand speech in multitalker environments even when hearing aids are used.
Conflict of interest statement
Authors’ conflict of interest disclosure: The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this article.
Research funding: None declared.
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
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©2014 by De Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Israel Society for Auditory Research (ISAR): 2014 Annual Scientific Conference
- Mini Review
- Investigation of the mechanism of soft tissue conduction explains several perplexing auditory phenomena
- Original Articles
- The mechanism of direct stimulation of the cochlea by vibrating the round window
- Auditory-evoked cortical activity: contribution of brain noise, phase locking, and spectral power
- Rapid adaptation to time-compressed speech in young and older adults
- Apparent phenotypic anticipation in autosomal dominant connexin 26 deafness
- The effect of gender on a frequency discrimination task in children
- Auditory Behavior in Everyday Life (ABEL) questionnaire in Hebrew and in Arabic and its association with clinical tests in cochlear-implanted children
- Short-term learning effect in different psychoacoustic measures
- How difficult is difficult? Speech perception in noise in the elderly hearing impaired
- Congress Abstracts
- Israel Society for Auditory Research (ISAR) 2014 Annual Scientific Conference
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Israel Society for Auditory Research (ISAR): 2014 Annual Scientific Conference
- Mini Review
- Investigation of the mechanism of soft tissue conduction explains several perplexing auditory phenomena
- Original Articles
- The mechanism of direct stimulation of the cochlea by vibrating the round window
- Auditory-evoked cortical activity: contribution of brain noise, phase locking, and spectral power
- Rapid adaptation to time-compressed speech in young and older adults
- Apparent phenotypic anticipation in autosomal dominant connexin 26 deafness
- The effect of gender on a frequency discrimination task in children
- Auditory Behavior in Everyday Life (ABEL) questionnaire in Hebrew and in Arabic and its association with clinical tests in cochlear-implanted children
- Short-term learning effect in different psychoacoustic measures
- How difficult is difficult? Speech perception in noise in the elderly hearing impaired
- Congress Abstracts
- Israel Society for Auditory Research (ISAR) 2014 Annual Scientific Conference
