Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced lifestyle changes that may negatively impact communication, including the pervasive use of face masks and videoconferencing technology. Here, we examine the effects of age and self-rated hearing on subjective measures of speech understanding via a survey accessed by adults residing in the United States. Method Responses to an online survey were obtained from adults (21 years of age and older) during the summer and fall of 2020. The survey included questions about hearing and speech understanding in a variety of scenarios and different listening conditions, including when communicating with people using face masks in quiet and noisy environments and when using videoconferencing. Results Data from 1,703 surveys were analyzed. In general, the use of face masks led to the perception of poorer speech understanding and greater need for concentration, especially in noisy environments. When responses from all participants were considered, poorer self-rated communication ability was noted as age increased. However, among people who categorized their overall hearing as “Excellent” or “Good,” younger adults rated their speech understanding ability in noisy situations as poorer than middle-age or older adults. Among people who rated their overall hearing as “Fair” or “Poor,” middle-age adults indicated having more difficulty communicating with people using face masks, as compared with older adults. Examination of open-ended responses suggested that the strategies individuals use when communicating with people wearing face masks vary by age and self-rated hearing. Notably, middle-age and older adults were more likely to report using strategies that could put them at risk (e.g., asking others to remove their face masks). Conclusions Even younger adults with self-perceived good hearing are not immune to communication challenges brought about by face masks. Among individuals with similar degrees of self-rated hearing, the expected increase in communication difficulty with age was not noted among our respondents. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16528431

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to assess subjective and objective benefit provided by several direct-to-consumer hearing devices for middle-aged adults. The primary goal of this study was to determine the extent to which this type of device can yield benefit when users are listening in a range of acoustic conditions, rather than to compare benefit among devices. Method: Participants ( M age = 58 years, n = 40) completed a speech perception task with and without one of four direct-to-consumer devices. Stimuli were presented with three types of maskers (steady-state noise, modulated noise, and competing talkers) at two different signal-to-noise ratios and two target levels. Participants also rated the effort required to complete the task with and without the devices and completed a short questionnaire about device comfort and perceived effectiveness. Results: The amount of objective benefit (in terms of speech recognition accuracy) varied among the four products, with two of the four devices yielding statistically significant benefit with medium-to-large effect sizes. Reduction in self-rated listening effort was noted from the use of all four devices, with a moderate effect size. Degree of hearing loss (4-frequency pure-tone average) was not significantly associated with the amount of either subjective or objective benefit. Responses to the posttask questionnaire indicated that many of the participants would be willing to use these or similar devices in the “real world.” Conclusions: Our findings support the concept that direct-to-consumer hearing devices have the potential to improve objective and/or subjective speech recognition in middle-aged adults, at least when fit to prescriptive targets. Benefit from these devices was not related to degree of hearing loss in this sample of participants.

In day-to-day life people often need to perform more than one task at a time. Dual- and multi-task costs may occur in these situations. In the present study we examined the realistic situation in which people must communicate in an acoustically-challenging environment while walking. Participants (younger adults and middle-aged adults) performed a task of listening and responding to speech presented in competing speech. In this task, participants repeated back sentences presented from a front loudspeaker in the presence of two-talker same-sex speech maskers presented from loudspeakers to the right and left. In some conditions they were asked to also complete a memory task in which they were shown a sequence of four numbers and letters (e.g., “C9L3”) before the trial began and had to report that sequence at the end of the trial. These tasks were completed while either standing still or while walking on a treadmill. Gait parameters were measured using sensors attached to participants' wrists, legs, waist, chest, and forehead. This presentation will detail results of preliminary analyses designed to examine costs involved in performing these tasks simultaneously compared to individually in the two age groups. [Work supported by NIDCD 012057.].

Many middle-aged adults report that listening is effortful in adverse communication situations. One means of quantifying listening effort is by measuring dual-task costs. The present study examined the influence of early aging on dual-task costs using a technique which required participants (younger and middle-aged adults) to complete a postural control task while listening to speech. For the postural control task, participants stood on a force platform and had to maintain their center of pressure within a prescribed area (denoted using real-time visual feedback). Two speech perception tasks were used, each presented with two types of maskers (same-sex two-talker speech masker and steady-state speech-shaped noise): repeating back low-predictability sentences, and listening to Connected Speech Test passages and then answering content questions based on each passage. This presentation will describe data analyses designed to uncover how listener age group and masker type influenced listening effort as measured by dual-task costs. [Work supported by NIDCD 012057.]