Auditory Acclimatization to Bilateral Hearing Aids: Effects on Sentence-in-Noise Processing Times and Speech-Evoked Potentials
| Autor: | Mareike Finke, Tobias Neher, Julia Habicht |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Hearing aid
medicine.medical_specialty Speech perception Eye Movements medicine.medical_treatment Audiology 03 medical and health sciences Speech and Hearing 0302 clinical medicine Hearing Aids Event-related potential medicine Humans Longitudinal Studies 030223 otorhinolaryngology Hearing Loss Oddball paradigm Aged Working memory Auditory Threshold Speech processing Memory Short-Term Otorhinolaryngology Categorization Acoustic Stimulation Evoked Potentials Auditory Speech Perception Psychology Noise 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Sentence |
| Zdroj: | Ear and hearing. 39(1) |
| ISSN: | 1538-4667 |
| Popis: | Objectives Using a longitudinal design, the present study sought to substantiate indications from two previous cross-sectional studies that hearing aid (HA) experience leads to improved speech processing abilities as quantified using eye-gaze measurements. Another aim was to explore potential concomitant changes in event-related potentials (ERPs) to speech stimuli. Design Groups of elderly novice (novHA) and experienced (expHA) HA users matched in terms of age and working memory capacity participated. The novHA users were acclimatized to bilateral HA fittings for up to 24 weeks. The expHA users continued to use their own HAs during the same period. The participants' speech processing abilities were assessed after 0 weeks (novHA: N = 16; expHA: N = 14), 12 weeks (novHA: N = 16; expHA: N = 14), and 24 weeks (N = 10 each). To that end, an eye-tracking paradigm was used for estimating how quickly the participants could grasp the meaning of sentences presented against background noise together with two similar pictures that either correctly or incorrectly depicted the meaning conveyed by the sentences (the "processing time"). Additionally, ERPs were measured with an active oddball paradigm requiring the participants to categorize word stimuli as living (targets) or nonliving (nontargets) entities. For all measurements, the stimuli were spectrally shaped according to individual real-ear insertion gains and presented via earphones. Results Concerning the processing times, no changes across time were found for the expHA group. After 0 weeks of HA use, the novHA group had significantly longer (poorer) processing times than the expHA group, consistent with previous findings. After 24 weeks, a significant mean improvement of ~30% was observed for the novHA users, leading to a performance comparable with that of the expHA group. Concerning the ERPs, no changes across time were found. Conclusions The results from this exploratory study are consistent with the view that auditory acclimatization to HAs positively impacts speech comprehension in noise. Further research is needed to substantiate them. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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