The experience of pleasure before and after hearing rehabilitation

Abstract

Hearing loss may lead to major changes in the social and emotional aspects of daily life. This follow-up study investigated the effect of hearing-aid use on emotional experience in adults with hearing impairment. Thirteen individuals with impaired hearing were tested before and after 6 months of hearing-aid use, and were compared with 19 individuals who had worn hearing aids for many years. The participants reported their daily emotional experiences, by completing questionnaires relating to sensory and social pleasure. After 6 months of hearing-aid use, individuals experienced more physical and social pleasure, whereas individuals using hearing aids for long periods of time reported similar levels of pleasure at the beginning and at the end of a 6-month interval. The participants also performed a visual task, in which they rated the intensity of pleasure they experienced in response to emotionally positive and neutral pictures differing in luminance contrast. In this task, pleasure typically decreases with decreasing contrast of the positive images displayed. Once they had been fitted with hearing aids, the participants reported lower levels of pleasure, especially at low contrast. These findings highlight that the anhedonia scales provide a measure sensitive to emotional improvements that accompany the partial restoration of hearing function, although these scales were not specifically designed for hearing-impaired populations. In contrast, the surprising decrease in pleasure ratings for pictures after the introduction of hearing-aid use may be because of the compensation of hearing loss by changes in visual attention functions.