Measures of Listening Effort Are Multidimensional

Area of Science:

• Auditory Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Speech and Hearing Sciences

Background:

• Listening effort is crucial for understanding speech, particularly for individuals with hearing impairments.
• Existing literature on measuring listening effort is extensive but lacks consensus, with inconsistent findings across studies.
• Multimodal measures of listening effort often yield contradictory results, complicating interpretation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To directly compare simultaneously recorded multimodal measures of listening effort.
• To establish the reliability and validity of various listening effort measures.
• To identify underlying dimensions of listening effort through factor analysis.

Main Methods:

• 116 participants with varying hearing loss levels (normal to severe) participated.
• Simultaneous measurements included pupillometry, electroencephalography (EEG) alpha power, skin conductance, and self-report.
• Listening tasks involved digit recall at controlled signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).

Main Results:

• Good test-retest reliability was found for most measures, except skin conductance and fatigue self-report.
• Weak or nonsignificant correlations were observed between most listening effort measures.
• Factor analysis revealed four distinct underlying dimensions of listening effort.

Conclusions:

• Poor test-retest reliability does not explain the lack of correlation between measures.
• Listening effort measures capture multiple underlying dimensions, negating a single 'gold standard'.
• Selection of listening effort measures should align with specific research questions and task demands.