The Viability of Media Interviews as Materials for Auditory Training

Purpose Rehabilitative auditory training for people with hearing loss faces 2 primary challenges: generalization of learning to novel contexts and user adherence to training goals. We hypothesized that using interview excerpts from popular media as training materials would have the potential to positively influence both of these areas. Interviews contain predictable, structured complexity that promotes perceptual generalization and are also designed to be engaging for consumers. This study tested the viability of such popular media interviews as training materials, comparing their effectiveness to that obtained with sentence transcription training. Method Young adults with normal hearing ( N = 60) completed 1 hr of transcription training using noise-vocoded materials, simulating acoustic perception through an 8-channel cochlear implant. Participants completed pre- and posttraining assessments of vocoded speech perception in quiet and in noise, along with posttraining high-variability sentence recognition and cued isolated word recognition. Scores on all tests were compared across 4 randomly assigned groups differing in training materials: audiovisual interviews, audio-only interviews, isolated sentences, and undegraded isolated sentences (providing an untrained control comparison group). Results Recognition in quiet and in noise improved with both types of interview-based training, and interview training groups outperformed the control group on all generalization tests. Participants in the audiovisual interview group also reported significantly higher, more sustained engagement in a retrospective survey. Conclusions Media interviews appear to be at least as effective as isolated sentences for transcription-based auditory training in simulated hearing loss settings with young adults and may improve engagement and generalization of benefit in auditory training applications.