Loudness as a cue for acceptable noise levels.
Karrie L Recker1, Martin F McKinney1, Brent W Edwards1
1Starkey Hearing Technologies, Eden Prairie, MN.
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology
|October 15, 2014
Summary
Most people do not use loudness to decide how much background noise they can tolerate with speech. This suggests other cues influence acceptable noise levels (ANL) for hearing aid success.
Area of Science:
- Audiology
- Psychoacoustics
- Hearing Science
Background:
- The acceptable noise level (ANL) test predicts hearing aid success.
- ANL is the maximum background noise a person tolerates with speech.
- Understanding ANL cues can improve hearing aid technology.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate if listeners use loudness to determine their ANLs.
- Explore factors influencing hearing aid user success.
- Identify cues for better hearing aid fitting.
Main Methods:
- Modified ANL test with fixed speech levels (50-88 dBA).
- Participants adjusted background noise (multitalker babble) to their tolerance limit.
- Compared ANLs with equal-loudness contours measured via loudness-matching tasks.
Main Results:
- Only two hearing-impaired participants showed ANLs parallel to loudness contours.
- The majority of listeners did not exhibit a consistent loudness-based strategy.
- No clear trend observed between ANLs and loudness-matched data for most participants.
Conclusions:
- Listeners primarily use cues other than loudness to set ANLs.
- Loudness may play a role for a small subset of individuals.
- Further research is needed to identify other ANL determination cues.
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