1. The effect of stimulus duration on preferences for gain adjustments when listening to speech
- Author
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Whitmer, William M., Caswell-Midwinter, Benjamin, and Naylor, Graham
- Subjects
Bio/Medical/Health - Psychology, Psychiatry & Neuroscience ,Speech and Hearing ,Linguistics and Language ,IRC - Digital Health ,Global Research Theme - Health and Wellbeing ,Bio/Medical/Health - Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing & Pharmacy ,Bio/Medical/Health - Clinical Medicine ,MRC Institute of Hearing Research ,Language and Linguistics ,IRC - Technological Innovations for Health & Wellbeing - Abstract
Objectives: In the personalisation of hearing-aid fittings, gain is often adjusted to suit patient preferences\ud using live speech. When using brief sentences as stimuli, the minimum gain adjustments necessary to\ud elicit consistent preferences (“preference thresholds”) were previously found to be much greater than typical adjustments in current practice. The current study examined the role of duration on preference thresholds.\ud Design: Participants heard 2, 4 and 6-s segments of a continuous monologue presented successively in\ud pairs. The first segment of each pair was presented at each individual’s real-ear or prescribed gain. The\ud second segment was presented with a ±0–12 dB gain adjustment in one of three frequency bands.\ud Participants judged whether the second was “better”, “worse” or “no different” from the first.\ud Study sample: Twenty-nine adults, all with hearing-aid experience.\ud Results: The minimum gain adjustments needed to elicit “better” or “worse” judgments decreased with\ud increasing duration for most adjustments. Inter-participant agreement and intra-participant reliability\ud increased with increasing duration up to 4 s, then remained stable.\ud Conclusions: Providing longer stimuli improves the likelihood of patients providing reliable judgments of\ud hearing-aid gain adjustments, but the effect is limited, and alternative fitting methods may be more\ud viable for effective hearing-aid personalisation.
- Published
- 2021