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Purpose:This study evaluated the feasibility of using wearable sensors to assess listening-related stress in varying listening difficulties. The results were compared to listening effort assessed using laboratory-grade physiological measures. We hypothesized that these wearable sensors could accurately measure listening-related stress and that the results would be in the same direction as those observed with laboratory-grade equipment.Method:A within-subject repeated-measures study was conducted on 16 young adults with typical hearing ability. Participants wore three commercially available sensors to record heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), and galvanic skin response (GSR). Participants' listening-related stress was assessed using self-report, wearable sensors, and laboratory-grade physiological measures while listening to sentences in noise. Listening conditions were manipulated in terms of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; −4, 0, +4, and +8 dB SNR), sentence predictability (high and low), and stress-inducing negative feedback (flash of light and monetary punishers).Results:On average, participants reported higher arousal and task load with decreasing SNR, for low predictability, and with negative feedback. Participants had significantly higher HR and RR in difficult listening conditions, when measured with wearable sensors. However, no significant differences were observed for skin conductance. There was a good agreement between the measures for HR but not for RR and GSR.Conclusions:Although wearable sensors have potential in reflecting changes in listening effort, the results were not consistent with laboratory-grade measures. Methodological choices in both measures and design appear to affect outcomes. Future studies should focus on crafting designs appropriate to wearable devices to reflect changes in listening-related stress.

Purpose:The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships between emotional reactivity (ER), measures of personality, and sound acceptability (SA) in typically hearing young adults and to determine whether ER and specific personality traits were related to overall SA.Method:This exploratory survey study included measures of personality, ER, and SA ratings. Fifty-three typically hearing young adults (18–30 years old) participated.Results:Relationships between general ER and personality traits were evaluated. Positive associations were noted between reports of positive reactivity and extraversion and agreeableness and general negative reactivity and neuroticism. A small negative association between agreeableness and negative reactivity was observed.Relationships between ER, personality traits, and SA were evaluated. The personality trait agreeableness was positively related to SA ratings for transient and episodic loud sounds and episodic average sounds, and negative reactivity was negatively associated with SA ratings for transient loud sounds. Regression analysis indicated that whereas negative ER explained some variance of SA ratings, agreeableness did not further explain any variance in SA ratings.Conclusions:This study highlighted the close relationships between some personality traits and ER and demonstrated that aspects of these traits impact perceived SA. For these typically hearing young adults, SA ratings were driven by different combinations of loudness and duration of the sound and further influenced by ER. Although this study focused on typically hearing young adults, the results suggest that evaluating ER could help in identifying those who might have reduced SA. These findings provide a rationale for further investigation of the impact of these variables on amplified SA for amplification users.

Purpose:The purpose of this article is to offer diverse viewpoints on the potential impact of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids on patients and hearing health care professionals. OTC hearing aids are discussed from the perspective of an editor of a hearing industry trade publication, an audiologist and business owner, a hearing aid user and consumer advocate, and a researcher and professor.Conclusions:Given the increasing attention surrounding OTCs, there is a need to understand diverse perspectives. The editor provides a historical context and overview of the Food and Drug Administration's OTC regulations and reflects on implications based on nearly 3 decades of experience reporting on the hearing industry. An audiologist provides her perspective on what she has observed among clinicians who appear to either resist or embrace the OTC hearing aid concept and offers recommendations for how to engage with OTCs for the benefit of patients. A hearing aid user and consumer advocate shares how OTCs might impact her own hearing care and comments on how audiologists can support consumers who choose OTCs. Lastly, a researcher offers her response to common concerns based in the literature and comments on the perceived value of OTC hearing aids. This article is concluded with a discussion on future areas of need and recommendations.

Modern hearing aid devices comprise a collection of acoustic signal processing features designed to lessen auditory disability in a variety of daily listening environments. Features incorporated into premium-level hearing aids are assumed to result in further improvements to daily listening outcomes compared with features incorporated into basic-level hearing aids. Overall, comparisons of speech understanding and listening effort outcomes obtained in the laboratory and in daily life with premium and basic levels of hearing aid technologies did not support this assumption.

Hearing aid providers are faced with the challenge of recommending the most appropriate technology level for each patient. Premium technology is more costly but is claimed to yield better hearing outcomes than basic technology, despite the lack of independent evidence to support these claims. This research explored differences in effectiveness for premium and basic technology hearing aids used by older adults in blinded field trials. Outcome measures captured the reported benefits or deficits yielded by each type of hearing aid in the individual’s everyday life situations. All tested devices were helpful. However, premium and basic technology devices were equally effective.Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text.

A cochlear dead region (DR) occurs at a given frequency when there is a loss of normal functioning of inner hair cells tuned to that frequency. It has been suggested that existence of high-frequency DRs has implications for hearing aid fitting, and that the optimal amount of high-frequency gain is reduced for these patients. However, the data supporting this suggestion has been obtained using listeners with severe or profound hearing loss. It is uncertain whether these results would apply for listeners with the mild to moderately severe hearing loss that is more typical of hearing aid users. This investigation used laboratory and field measurements to examine the effects of reduced high-frequency gain in typical hearing aid users with high-frequency DRs compared with matched users without DRs.

This study had two purposes. The first was to assess the prevalence of cochlear dead regions (DRs) among listeners with moderate to severe hearing loss that is typical of a large proportion of adult hearing aid wearers. The second was to determine whether subjects who tested positive for DRs differed from those without DRs in their ability to utilize high-frequency speech cues in a laboratory test.

This study was undertaken for two purposes: First, to provide a comparison of subjective performance and benefit measured with the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) questionnaire for two groups. One group included hearing-impaired individuals using 1990s-era linear processing hearing aids. The other group included hearing-impaired individuals using more current wide-dynamic range compression (WDRC)-capable hearing aids fit using current practice protocols. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether APHAB norms derived from scores for current hearing aid users were different from the original 1995 norms. It was hypothesized that technology improvements would result in improved subjective performance for modern hearing aid wearers.