Relation between hearing abilities and preferred playback settings for speech perception in complex listening...

Area of Science:

• Auditory perception
• Psychoacoustics
• Speech processing

Background:

• Understanding individual listening preferences is crucial for effective auditory rehabilitation.
• The trade-off between signal-to-noise ratio and speech distortion presents a complex challenge in noisy environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the stability of individual preferences regarding the balance between signal-to-noise ratio and speech distortion.
• To assess if simple self-adjustment methods can categorize individuals as "noise haters" or "distortion haters".

Main Methods:

• Participants adjusted target speech levels using linear gain, clipping distortion, or compression distortion under various masking conditions.
• Preferences were analyzed across different maskers, spatial settings, and distortion types.

Main Results:

• Individual preferences for the noise-versus-distortion trade-off demonstrated high test-retest stability.
• Participants were consistently categorized along a "noise hater" to "distortion hater" scale, irrespective of the listening conditions.

Conclusions:

• A stable individual preference trait for managing "noise vs. distortions" was identified using self-adjustment methods.
• This stable trait has potential applications in tailoring modern hearing aid algorithms to individual user needs.