Simulated Hearing Loss Research Articles

A study of noise-induced annoyance and fatigue in open-plan offices: comparison between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners

Several studies outline a future scenario of longer working lives and later retirement, meaning that there could be a large number of elderly workers in offices. Add to this the natural effect of hearing loss due to ageing (presbycusis; which usually presents after the 5th decade of life) and you have an open door to questions regarding the acoustic comfort of this group. In a first study, it was shown that the effect of intelligible speech on performance in a serial recall task is similar for listeners with normal hearing and presbycusis. The aim of this new experiment is to assess whether any differences might occur when people are involved in a more ecologically valid task (long exposure to noise - 3 h/condition - and similar tasks to those performed in open-plan offices). Given the validation of a hearing loss simulator in previous studies, this one will be used to reproduce the group of people with mild hearing loss (onset of presbycusis). Therefore, the same group of people (32 participants) with normal hearing will perform the experiment under two listening conditions, with and without the simulator. Each listening condition will have two noise conditions, irrelevant speech, each with a different intelligibility level.

Spectral weighting functions for localization of complex sound. III. The effect of sensorineural hearing lossa).

Spectral weighting functions for sound localization were measured in participants with bilateral mild sloping to moderately severe, high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and compared to normal hearing (NH) participants with and without simulated SNHL. Each participant group localized three types of complex tones, comprised of seven frequency components spatially jittered and presented from the horizontal frontal field. A threshold-elevating noise masker was implemented in the free field to simulate SNHL for participants with NH. On average, participants with SNHL and NH (in quiet and simulated SNHL) placed the greatest perceptual weight on components within the interaural time difference "dominance region," found previously to peak around 800 Hz [Folkerts and Stecker, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 151, 3409-3425 (2022)]. In addition to the peak at 800 Hz, both participant groups (including NH participants in quiet) placed near equal weight on 400 Hz, resulting in a broadened "peak" in the dominance region, most likely due to the reduction of audibility to higher frequency components. However, individual weighting strategies were more variable across participants with SNHL than participants with NH. Localization performance was reduced for participants with SNHL but not for NH participants with simulated hearing loss when compared to NH participants in quiet.

Effect of simulated hearing loss on automatic speech recognition for an android robot-patient.

The importance of simulating patient behavior for medical assessment training has grown in recent decades due to the increasing variety of simulation tools, including standardized/simulated patients, humanoid and android robot-patients. Yet, there is still a need for improvement of current android robot-patients to accurately simulate patient behavior, among which taking into account their hearing loss is of particular importance. This paper is the first to consider hearing loss simulation in an android robot-patient and its results provide valuable insights for future developments. For this purpose, an open-source dataset of audio data and audiograms from human listeners was used to simulate the effect of hearing loss on an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. The performance of the system was evaluated in terms of both word error rate (WER) and word information preserved (WIP). Comparing different ASR models commonly used in robotics, it appears that the model size alone is insufficient to predict ASR performance in presence of simulated hearing loss. However, though absolute values of WER and WIP do not predict the intelligibility for human listeners, they do highly correlate with it and thus could be used, for example, to compare the performance of hearing aid algorithms.

Effects of age and hearing loss on speech emotion discrimination

Better communication with older people requires not only improving speech intelligibility but also understanding how well emotions can be conveyed and the effect of age and hearing loss (HL) on emotion perception. In this paper, emotion discrimination experiments were conducted using a vocal morphing method and an HL simulator in young normal hearing (YNH) and older participants. Speech sounds were morphed to represent intermediate emotions between all combinations of happiness, sadness, and anger. Discrimination performance was compared when the YNH listened to normal sounds, when the same YNH listened to HL simulated sounds, and when older people listened to the same normal sounds. The results showed that there was no significant difference between discrimination with and without HL simulation, suggesting that peripheral HL may not affect emotion perception. The discrimination performance of the older participants was significantly worse only for the anger-happiness pair than for the other emotion pairs and for the YNH. It was also found that the difficulty increases with age, not just with hearing level.

Dynamical analysis of hearing loss due to mumps virus with Caputo fractional derivative

Mumps is the most common disease for children, which causes hearing loss in all auditory systems. WHO initiated compulsory vaccination for children who are at age of 12 months to 12 years, since 1967. Children must take two doses of vaccination for mumps. The dynamics of the system describing the mumps transmission is studied in this work. The main aim is to elucidate the nonlinear behavior of the system which can provide insights into the long-term effects of Mumps infection on auditory function. As the fractional-order derivative preserves the impact of system memory, we employ the Caputo fractional derivative as the dynamical system describing modeling to simulate hearing loss in children brought on by the mumps virus. The boundedness existence of the solution and stability analysis of the dynamical system are derived in the framework. The result is derived using a well-known numerical method to capture the corresponding consequences and predict the future consequence of the dynamical system associated with parameters. To testify to the importance of the generalizing classical model with a fractional operator, we plot 2D graphs. This study helps to researcher beginners to understand the essential and fundamental tools while investigating real-world problems.

Horizontal Sound Localization and Spatial Short-Term Memory Span in Hearing-Impaired Listeners and Listeners With Simulated Hearing Loss.

Localization of a sound source in the horizontal plane depends on the listener's interaural comparison of arrival time and level. Hearing loss (HL) can reduce access to these binaural cues, possibly disrupting the localization and memory of spatial information. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the horizontal sound localization performance and the spatial short-term memory in listeners with actual and simulated HL. Seventeen listeners with bilateral symmetric HL and 17 listeners with normal hearing (NH) participated in the study. The hearing thresholds of NH listeners were elevated by a spectrally shaped masking noise for the simulations of unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and bilateral hearing loss (BHL). The localization accuracy and errors as well as the spatial short-term memory span were measured in the free field using a set of 11 loudspeakers arrayed over a 150° arc. The localization abilities and spatial short-term memory span did not significantly differ between actual BHL listeners and BHL-simulated NH listeners. Overall, the localization performance with the UHL simulation was approximately twofold worse than that with the BHL simulation, and the hearing asymmetry led to a detrimental effect on spatial memory. The mean localization score as a function of stimulus location in the UHL simulation was less than 30% even for the front (0° azimuth) stimuli and much worse on the side closer to the simulated ear. In the UHL simulation, the localization responses were biased toward the side of the intact ear even when sounds were coming from the front. Hearing asymmetry induced by the UHL simulation substantially disrupted the localization performance and recall abilities of spatial positions encoded and stored in the memory, due to fewer chances to learn strategies to improve localization. The marked effect of hearing asymmetry on sound localization highlights the need for clinical assessments of spatial hearing in addition to conventional hearing tests.

Chapter 6: What Else Can I Do with This Equipment?

AbstractIf there is sound in the ear canal, you can measure it with a probe microphone in the ear. The following are a few examples of how you might use your real-ear probe microphone measures beyond verifying hearing aid fittings, signal processing, and function of features. A process to simulate hearing loss to educate and support family members and patients is described.

Analysis of physiological measures around conversational state changes

The goal of this work is to extend the use of physiological measures of listening effort to interactive conversation. The initial work here investigates variations in head movement, eye gaze, and pupil dilation around conversational state changes during task-based conversations. Here, conversational state changes are defined as the points in time at which speakers start and stop talking. Windows around each of these types of state changes are analyzed for systematic differences of these parameters, which could be indicative of changes in attention and/or differences in speech production versus perception. Additionally, we calculate state change response functions, derived from a multivariate regression that maps from the state changes to the measured parameters and extracted features. The predictive power of these functions is explored, alongside comparisons of various considerations in their derivations. Our findings, based on data collected from 12 sets of interactive conversations taking place in varying levels of noise and simulated hearing loss, offer insight into how physiological responses during complex interactions can be measured and interpreted to infer when and where effort is directed throughout conversation.

Does hearing impairment affect gait under realistic conditions?

Hearing loss is associated with increased risk of falling, but little is known about how hearing impairment might affect mobility. Here, we report preliminary results from an ongoing experimental study investigating dynamic properties of gait while walking with and without impaired hearing. Young- and middle-aged adult participants with self-reported normal hearing completed four walking tasks, 2 indoors, 2 outdoors, each conducted with and without a simulated hearing loss. In the impaired condition, participants wore an insert earplug in one ear combined with binaural, circumaural noise-damping headphones. We quantified gait parameters using data from inertial measurement units (IMUs) affixed to participants’ ankles and waist, allowing participants to walk farther than in typical gait assessments. Parameters included standard gait metrics, such as limb acceleration as well as a novel spatiotemporal index quantifying variability in step patterns. Data have been collected from 13 of 30 projected participants. Analysis will focus on how temporal-spatial gait parameters and variability differ between indoor and outdoor walking with and without hearing impairment. We expect gait parameters to reflect a more variable and potentially less mobile walking strategy in the outdoor condition and with impaired hearing due to increased cognitive load and/or reduced spatial awareness in those conditions.

Using AR to Teach AR: Learning Outcomes of a Guided, Augmented Reality Hearing Loss and Auditory Rehabilitation Simulation with SLP Graduate Students

Using AR to Teach AR: Learning Outcomes of a Guided, Augmented Reality Hearing Loss and Auditory Rehabilitation Simulation with SLP Graduate Students

Investigating cross-cultural emotional responses to world music under simulated hearing loss

In today’s dynamic and interconnected world, emotional response to music is an experience that connects people across cultures. Regardless of cultural background, the music listening experience is impeded for people facing hearing loss. Hearing loss is quite prevalent, yet little is known about how those with impaired hearing experience emotions in response to music. This project’s objective was to understand cross-cultural emotional responses to music and how they are altered under hearing-impaired conditions. We studied emotions expressed by people from two different countries after listening to world music and investigated how these emotions varied under simulated hearing loss. We first hypothesized that emotions elicited by music would be similar across people from the U.S. and India. We next hypothesized that emotions found to be elicited similarly across cultures would continue to be experienced when listening to music under simulated hearing loss conditions. In this study, we surveyed 984 participants from the two countries, asking them to identify the emotions elicited by 100 world music clips. We then repeated the survey with an additional 886 participants using clips in which the music was modified to simulate hearing loss. Our results indicated that, of the 20 emotions studied, 8 were prominently positively correlated across both countries. Furthermore, we found that these emotions differed from the emotions correlated across the two countries under simulated hearing loss, potentially providing new insight into how hearing loss affects emotional perceptions of music. The conclusions have implications in audiology, psychology, and for the music industry as it relates to hearing loss.

Threshold Estimation and Speech Perception Under Hearing Loss Simulation: Examination of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator

Purpose: Hearing loss simulation (HLS) has been recommended for clinical teaching and counseling of patients and their families, so that they can experience hearing impairment. However, few validated procedures for simulating hearing loss are available to instructors and practicing clinicians. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of the Immersive Hearing Loss and Prosthesis Simulator (I-HeLPS) on reducing hearing sensitivity and word recognition to determine its adequacy for educational and clinical use. Method: Thirty-seven young adults with normal hearing completed hearing threshold and word recognition testing under normal and simulated hearing losses. The accuracy of the nominal hearing threshold settings within the I-HeLPS software was assessed with behavioral detection of frequency-modulated pure tones presented in a calibrated sound field, while listeners wore I-HeLPS headphones. The impact of the HLSs on speech perception was measured using the California Consonant Test. Hearing thresholds, word identification accuracy, and sound confusions were compared across listening conditions. Results: Hearing thresholds increased systematically with worse simulated hearing loss. Performance on the California Consonant Test worsened, and the number of phoneme confusions increased with simulated hearing loss severity. Most of the confusions were place confusions with near neighbors and manner confusions increased as a function of increasing severity of simulated hearing loss. Conclusions: The I-HeLPS accurately elevated hearing thresholds with increasing HLS severity and impacted word recognition in a manner consistent with sensorineural hearing loss. The simulations were considered reasonable for educational and clinical purposes. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24520966

Hearing loss impacts aviator performance and cognitive workload during simulated flight

Hearing loss can render an aviator more susceptible to the adverse effects of degraded communication signals and consequently lead to an increased allocation of mental resources to hear (referred to as listening effort). Army aviation hearing standards, which are primarily based on pure tone and speech recognition test scores in quiet environments, do not necessarily predict the functional impact of hearing loss. The Army has recently adopted a new Military Operational Hearing Test (MOHT) to assess the functional impact of hearing loss. The current study aimed to validate the MOHT, specifically for aviators, and measure subjective workload, task performance, and physiological workload across different simulated hearing loss conditions in both clinical and flight simulator settings. Participants were Army aviators with normal hearing thresholds and underwent clinical testing using the MOHT for normal and hearing loss conditions. In addition to audiometric data, flight performance data were collected from pilots operating a full-motion UH-60 Black Hawk flight simulator for different levels of workloads and compared across the different hearing loss conditions. Subjective and physiological measurements of cognitive workload during simulated flight were also collected. Findings from this study will be leveraged in developing future protocols for aeromedical standards and evaluating hearing loss mitigation strategies using various headset technologies.

Simulation of hearing loss can induce pitch shifts for complex tones.

Most studies on pitch shift provoked by hearing loss have been conducted using pure tones. However, many sounds encountered in everyday life are harmonic complex tones. In the present study, psychoacoustic experiments using complex tones were performed on healthy participants, and the possible mechanisms that cause pitch shift due to hearing loss are discussed. Two experiments were performed in this study. In experiment 1, two tones were presented, and the participants were asked to select the tone that was higher in pitch. Partials with frequencies less than 250, 500, 750, or 1,000 Hz were eliminated from the harmonic complex tones and used as test tones to simulate low-tone hearing loss. Each tone pair was constructed such that the tone with a lower fundamental frequency (F0) was higher in terms of the frequency of the lowest partial. Furthermore, partials whose frequencies were greater than 1,300 or 1,600 Hz were also eliminated from these test tones to simulate high-tone hearing loss or modified sounds that patients may hear in everyday life. When a tone with a lower F0 was perceived as higher in pitch, it was considered a pitch shift from the expected tone. In experiment 2, tonal sequences were constructed to create a passage of the song "Lightly Row." Similar to experiment 1, partials of harmonic complex tones were eliminated from the tones. After listening to these tonal sequences, the participants were asked if the sequences sounded correct based on the melody or off-key. The results showed that pitch shifts and the melody sound off-key when lower partials are eliminated from complex tones, especially when a greater number of high-frequency components are eliminated. Considering that these experiments were performed on healthy participants, the results suggest that the pitch shifts from the expected tone when patients with hearing loss hear certain complex tones, regardless of the underlying etiology of the hearing loss.

Effect of simulated acute bilateral severe conductive hearing loss on static balance function in healthy subjects: a prospective observational pilot study

PurposeMaintaining static balance is a process coordinated by central integration of visual, vestibular and somatosensory information. Whether or not hearing and spatial acoustic information contributes to the maintenance of static postural balance is unclear.MethodsA prospective observational pilot study was performed. Twenty-five normal hearing adults (68% female; 19–31 years) underwent a computerized dynamic posturography test battery including the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), the Motor Control Test (MCT), and the Adaptation Test (ADT). The balance tests were performed two times, in a randomized sequence without or with acute hearing loss. Earplugs (sound insulation 37 dB) or headphones with white noise (sound volume 75 dB) induced the conductive hearing loss. Hence, all participants passed through four sequences of the balance test battery. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the results.ResultsThe ANOVA revealed no difference for any SOT and ADT subtest without hearing loss and simulated hearing loss (either earplugs or headphones; all p > 0.05). The ANOVA showed no longer latencies with simulated hearing loss compared to no hearing loss in both experiments with one exception: the reaction of the right foot during large forward translation was longer with hearing loss than without hearing loss in both experiments (p = 0.025).ConclusionsOverall, a simulated acute conductive bilateral moderate or severe hearing loss did not disturb the static balance function in normal hearing younger adults in this first small pilot study.

Perceived Anger in Clear and Conversational Speech: Contributions of Age and Hearing Loss.

A previous investigation demonstrated differences between younger adult normal-hearing listeners and older adult hearing-impaired listeners in the perceived emotion of clear and conversational speech. Specifically, clear speech sounded angry more often than conversational speech for both groups, but the effect was smaller for the older listeners. These listener groups differed by two confounding factors, age (younger vs. older adults) and hearing status (normal vs. impaired). The objective of the present study was to evaluate the contributions of aging and hearing loss to the reduced perception of anger in older adults with hearing loss. We investigated perceived anger in clear and conversational speech in younger adults with and without a simulated age-related hearing loss, and in older adults with normal hearing. Younger adults with simulated hearing loss performed similarly to normal-hearing peers, while normal-hearing older adults performed similarly to hearing-impaired peers, suggesting that aging was the primary contributor to the decreased anger perception seen in previous work. These findings confirm reduced anger perception for older adults compared to younger adults, though the significant speaking style effect—regardless of age and hearing status—highlights the need to identify methods of producing clear speech that is emotionally neutral or positive.

Lateralized Readiness Potentials Recorded with Near-Threshold Auditory Stimuli in Subjects Simulating Hearing Loss

Introduction: Preparatory motor cortical responses like the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) may be useful in revealing persistent attempts to feign hearing loss. Previous studies suggest only a marginal effect of stimulus intensity on the amplitude of the LRP. However, this has not been investigated using low-intensity auditory stimuli to cue NoGo trials. We address this in an experiment where subjects were instructed not to give a manual response to low-instensity stimuli, a situation that is akin to simulating hearing loss. Methods: The LRP was recorded from normal hearing listeners (N = 10) with 500 and 4,000-Hz pure tones and trains of 4,000 Hz (2-1-2) tonebursts. Electrophysiologic data underwent processing to (i) analyze the effect of the stimulus type on the LRP, (ii) classify results according to manual response with both logistic regression and linear support vector machine (SVM) models, and (iii) derive auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) from the tonebursts. Results: The amplitude of the LRP did not differ between the 3 stimuli used to elicit the response. Single-trial electrode data from Go and NoGo trials were submitted to supervised binary classification, and the logistic regression model gave a mean accuracy of close to 0.7. The Jewett wave V latencies of the resultant ABRs from some subjects were found to increase between the high (Go) and low (NoGo) intensity tonebursts. Conclusion: This study shows that auditory stimulus type does not affect the amplitude of the LRP and that the response can be recorded with stimuli that are near the auditory threshold. It can also be recorded with transient stimuli, and this allows for the possibility of simultaneously recording other confirmatory measurements, like ABR.

Effects of the Configuration of Hearing Loss on Consonant Perception between Simulated Bimodal and Electric Acoustic Stimulation Hearing.

Cochlear implant technology allows for acoustic and electric stimulations to be combined across ears (bimodal) and within the same ear (electric acoustic stimulation [EAS]). Mechanisms used to integrate speech acoustics may be different between the bimodal and EAS hearing, and the configurations of hearing loss might be an important factor for the integration. Thus, differentiating the effects of different configurations of hearing loss on bimodal or EAS benefit in speech perception (differences in performance with combined acoustic and electric stimulations from a better stimulation alone) is important. Using acoustic simulation, we determined how consonant recognition was affected by different configurations of hearing loss in bimodal and EAS hearing. A mixed design was used with one between-subject variable (simulated bimodal group vs. simulated EAS group) and one within-subject variable (acoustic stimulation alone, electric stimulation alone, and combined acoustic and electric stimulations). Twenty adult subjects (10 for each group) with normal hearing were recruited. Consonant perception was unilaterally or bilaterally measured in quiet. For the acoustic stimulation, four different simulations of hearing loss were created by band-pass filtering consonants with a fixed lower cutoff frequency of 100 Hz and each of the four upper cutoff frequencies of 250, 500, 750, and 1,000 Hz. For the electric stimulation, an eight-channel noise vocoder was used to generate a typical spectral mismatch by using fixed input (200-7,000 Hz) and output (1,000-7,000 Hz) frequency ranges. The effects of simulated hearing loss on consonant recognition were compared between the two groups. Significant bimodal and EAS benefits occurred regardless of the configurations of hearing loss and hearing technology (bimodal vs. EAS). Place information was better transmitted in EAS hearing than in bimodal hearing. These results suggest that configurations of hearing loss are not a significant factor for integrating consonant information between acoustic and electric stimulations. The results also suggest that mechanisms used to integrate consonant information may be similar between bimodal and EAS hearing.

Speech intelligibility in different types of audiograms and speech audiometry by using the simulated hearing loss on the speech material with normal hearing people

Presbycusis and noise-induced hearing loss result in characteristic audiogram curves with increasing levels of hearing loss at higher frequencies. Another specific form of audiogram curve is the cookie bite, which is often the result of inherited hearing loss and sometimes the result of illness or injury. The influence of the hearing loss on speech intelligibility was examined along with a list of words selected according to the frequency range of the phonemes present. Dependence of speech intelligibility and frequency of dominant hearing loss, at lower, middle and higher frequencies and over the whole range is shown. The method of speech audiometry with the simulated hearing loss on the speech material and the normal hearing people is presented.

The perception of English words with consonant clusters and vowel deletion by young normal-hearing listeners under noise

In this study, we investigated whether the misperception rate of English words with consonant cluster and vowel deletion increase under noise simulated age-related hearing loss. A perception experiment was conducted for young normal-hearing listeners, British English native speakers, in both noise and no-noise conditions. We used real English words were used as target words for this experiment which have consonant clusters in the word-initial and word-final (Type1) and that vowel deletion can occur in first or second vowels (V1 and V2) (Type2). These words were produced and recorded by a male British English native speaker, and the speech sounds were used as the stimuli of this experiment. V1 or V2 in Type2 was produced with deletion and non-deletion. The results showed that the misperception rate of words of Type1 and Type 2 with deletion increased in the noise condition. However, the misperception rate was greater for Type2 with deletion than Type 1 in the noise condition, suggesting vowel energy is important to perceive English words in the noise condition. Hence, the misperception rate by elderly English native listeners is expected to increase for these words as well this result in the simulation of age-related hearing loss.