Susceptibility to signal distortion in older listeners with hearing loss

Abstract

Older adults show significant individual variability in hearing aid benefit. Our recent work has identified factors contributing to this individual variability including age, degree of hearing loss, and working memory. Specifically, older adults with greater hearing loss and poorer working memory are disadvantaged (poorer speech recognition) by signal distortions arising from adverse listening conditions and aggressive hearing aid signal processing settings. In this presentation, we focus on the range of signal distortions (quantified by a cepstral correlation metric) due to hearing aid signal processing such as amplitude compression, frequency lowering, and digital noise reduction, combined with different amounts and types of background noise. Across studies, we characterized individual susceptibility to signal distortions with a comprehensive set of conditions ranging from laboratory simulations to realistic listening conditions. Earlier studies considered omnidirectional settings and co-located speech and noise conditions, whereas recent work has focused on clinically realistic conditions such as wearable hearing aids, microphone directionality, and spatially-separated speech and multi-talker babble. We will discuss the clinical implications of these findings, particularly the impact on customizing hearing aid fittings to maximize benefit for older individuals. [Work is funded by NIDCD.]