Speech intelligibility in noise
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigations of speech intelligibility in noise: comparisons of healthy hearing and mild-to-moderate hearing impairments
IRAS ID
312334
Contact name
Kerry Walker
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 4 months, 1 days
Research summary
Understanding a conversation requires our brain to identify and separate speech from background noise. This allows us to keep our attention on the person talking to us (selective listening). This task is harder for people with hearing loss, and hearing aids are not helpful. Difficulty hearing can lead to social isolation and is linked to depression and dementia. The James Lind Alliance has identified this as a priority research area.
Existing studies have identified the physical qualities of sound (sound cues) that listeners use to hear speech in background noise. However, we do not know which of these cues are the most important, or how ageing and hearing loss affect them. Our study investigates which sound cues contribute most to selective listening in people with normal hearing and hearing loss.
In our study, people will listen to spoken sentences in the presence of background noise and report words from the sentences. We will make changes to the sound cues to find out which are most useful for this task. We will then compare the results of people with hearing loss to those with normal hearing, and across people of different ages. This comparison will show which sound cues for selective listening are affected by age and hearing loss. We will also interview people with hearing loss about their experience of using hearing aids.
Together, these studies will develop our understanding of an important part of hearing. This knowledge will guide improvements to our treatments for hearing loss.REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/SC/0268
Date of REC Opinion
7 Sep 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion