Effects of Hearing Aids in a Simulated Open-Plan Office: A Laboratory Study Involving Normal-Hearing Participants and...

Over the past decade, the prevalence of hearing aid users in open-plan offices has risen significantly. This study investigates the potential effects of wearing hearing aids on cognitive performance and psychological state in noisy office environments.

A laboratory experiment involved 46 normal-hearing participants. Four sound conditions mixed speech with open-plan office noise at varying signal-to-noise ratios. Stimuli were recorded in a semi-anechoic room using an acoustic dummy head with and without hearing aids, and moderate hearing loss was simulated. Participants performed a 1 h 40 min press review task over headphones. Performance, sound environment perception, fatigue and mental workload were assessed. Repeated-measures analyses of variance was performed to analyse the data.

The results revealed a significant principal effect of wearing hearing aids on each of the three dimensions of sound environment perception: noisy ( F (1,44)=70.52, ***p < 0.001, ), annoying ( F (1,44) = 58.40, ***p < 0.001, ) and tiring ( F (1,44) = 34.44, ***p < 0.001, ). In all cases, the environment was perceived more poorly with hearing aids (e.g., mean annoyance = 4.4 vs. 2.7). A small but significant effect was also found on external mental workload ( F (1,45) = 6.1 p* = 0.017, ). No significant effects were detected impacting task performance, perceived fatigue or other workload dimensions (available resources, germane workload).

The findings suggest that, when activities require high levels of concentration, hearing aids may have a detrimental effect on the perception of the sound environment. However, the results highlight the need for collective prevention. Consequently, workspace acoustics should be optimised, regardless of hearing status.