Annoyance perception of environmental noises by hearing impaired listeners

Abstract

Annoyance perception of environmental noises is an important topic in many fields, including transportation, environmental studies and hearing aid design. While annoyance perception of normal hearing (NH) listeners has been studied extensively (e.g. Fastl & Zwicker 2006, Versfeld & Vos 1997, Alayrac et al 2010, Palmer et al 2006), data on annoyance perception of hearing impaired (HI) listeners is scant. In this study, we investigate the annoyance perception of typical environmental noises by both NH and HI listeners, using listeners with unilateral hearing loss. We use the magnitude estimation procedure to obtain the annoyance ratings and a paired-comparison method to obtain the annoyance preference for different environmental noises. The experimental data are analyzed to reveal the underlying dimensions of annoyance perception and differences between NH and HI listeners. A functional model for annoyance perception is developed for both HI and NH listeners. Finally, potential applications of our results are discussed in the context of hearing aid design.