A Potential Bias in Subjective Ratings of Mental Effort

Moore, Travis M.; Picou, Erin M.

doi:10.1044/2018_jslhr-h-17-0451

Cited by 57 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…The subjective effort rating scale was an adapted version of the NASA task load index item assessing mental demand (Hart & Staveland, 1988), to measure of effort (Dimitrijevic et al, 2019;McGarrigle et al, 2017;Strand et al, 2018). Finally, the subjective performance evaluation scale was an adapted version of the performance scales used in Moore and Picou (2018). This was included to help mitigate against the tendency for participants to use perceived performance as a proxy of effort (Moore & Picou, 2018).…”

Section: Subjective Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the subjective performance evaluation scale was an adapted version of the performance scales used in Moore and Picou (2018). This was included to help mitigate against the tendency for participants to use perceived performance as a proxy of effort (Moore & Picou, 2018).…”

Section: Subjective Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, although we found physiological evidence of a difference between groups in the effortful control of attention during listening, this did not translate into differences in perceived effort or tiredness from listening. Effort ratings have been shown to be highly correlated with subjective performance evaluation (Moore & Picou, 2018;McGarrigle, et al, 2020). It is therefore possible that attempting to equate performance between groups served to minimize potential differences in perceived effort and tiredness from listening.…”

Section: Effects Of Age and Task Demand On Subjective Ratings Of Effomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Older adults show a more sustained pattern of effortful listening than young adults

McGarrigle¹,

Knight²,

Rakusen³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Listening to speech in adverse conditions can be challenging and effortful, especially for older adults (OAs). This study examined age-related differences in effortful listening by recording changes in the task-evoked pupil response (TEPR; a physiological marker of listening effort) both at the level of sentence processing and over the entire course of a listening task. A total of 65 (32 young adults; 33 older adults) participants performed a speech recognition task in the presence of a competing talker, while moment-to-moment changes in pupil size were continuously monitored. Participants were also administered the Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale; a questionnaire assessing daily life listening fatigue within four domains (social, cognitive, emotional, physical). Normalised TEPRs were overall larger and more steeply rising and falling around the peak in OAs versus young adults (YAs) during sentence processing. Additionally, mean TEPRs over the course of the listening task were more stable in the OA versus the YA group, consistent with a more sustained recruitment of compensatory attentional resources to maintain task performance. No age-related differences were found in terms of total daily life listening fatigue; however, OAs reported higher scores than YAs within the social domain. Overall, this study provides evidence for qualitatively distinct patterns of physiological arousal during effortful listening between OAs and YAs which broadly supports age-related neural compensation hypotheses. A more detailed understanding of age-related changes in the subjective and physiological mechanisms that underlie effortful listening will ultimately help to address complex communication needs in ageing listeners.

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Section: Subjective Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Subjective Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effects Of Age and Task Demand On Subjective Ratings Of Effomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Older adults show a more sustained pattern of effortful listening than young adults

McGarrigle¹,

Knight²,

Rakusen³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is somewhat ambiguous, because participants could interpret this question in different ways. Recent studies have suggested that participants tend to substitute effort questions by an easier, perceived performance question (Moore & Picou, 2018;Picou & Ricketts, 2018), resulting in highest effort ratings for the most unfavorable SNRs. This could be solved by asking questions without explicitly using the term "effort" (Moore & Picou, 2018).…”

Section: Perceived Effort Versus Processing Loadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies have suggested that participants tend to substitute effort questions by an easier, perceived performance question (Moore & Picou, 2018;Picou & Ricketts, 2018), resulting in highest effort ratings for the most unfavorable SNRs. This could be solved by asking questions without explicitly using the term "effort" (Moore & Picou, 2018). For example, the question "How hard were you trying to understand the speech" (Wu et al, 2016) or asking to also indicate how often they had given up trying to perceive the sentences , can both give an indication of the aspect motivation and could consequently have resulted in a peak-shaped curve similar to RTsecond (Wu et al, 2016).…”

Section: Perceived Effort Versus Processing Loadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down modulation of neural envelope tracking: the interplay with behavioral, self-report and neural measures of listening effort

Decruy

Lesenfants

Vanthornhout

et al. 2019

Preprint

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AbstractWhen listening to natural speech, our neural activity tracks the speech envelope. Moreover, recent research has demonstrated that this neural envelope tracking can be affected by top-down processes. The present study was designed to examine if neural envelope tracking is modulated by the effort that a person expends during listening. Five measures were included to quantify listening effort: two behavioral measures based on a novel dual-task paradigm, a self-report effort measure and two neural measures related to neural phase synchronization and alpha power. Electroencephalography responses to sentences, presented at a wide range of subject-specific signal-to-noise ratios, were recorded in thirteen young, normal-hearing adults. A comparison of the five measures revealed different effects of listening effort as a function of speech understanding. Reaction times on the primary task and self-reported effort decreased with increasing speech understanding. In contrast, reaction times on the secondary task and alpha power showed a peak-shaped behavior with highest effort at intermediate speech understanding levels. We found a positive association between envelope tracking and speech understanding. While a significant effect of listening effort was found on theta-band envelope tracking, the effect size was negligible. Therefore, our results suggest that listening effort is not a confound when using envelope tracking to objectively measure speech understanding in young, normal-hearing adults.

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Listening effort: Are we measuring cognition or affect, or both?

Francis

Love

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Listening effort is increasingly recognized as a factor in communication, particularly for and with nonnative speakers, for the elderly, for individuals with hearing impairment and/or for those working in noise. However, as highlighted by McGarrigle et al., International Journal of Audiology, 2014, 53, 433–445, the term “listening effort” encompasses a wide variety of concepts, including the engagement and control of multiple possibly distinct neural systems for information processing, and the affective response to the expenditure of those resources in a given context. Thus, experimental or clinical methods intended to objectively quantify listening effort may ultimately reflect a complex interaction between the operations of one or more of those information processing systems, and/or the affective and motivational response to the demand on those systems. Here we examine theoretical, behavioral, and psychophysiological factors related to resolving the question of what we are measuring, and why, when we measure “listening effort.” This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Psychology > Theory and Methods Psychology > Attention Psychology > Emotion and Motivation

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A Potential Bias in Subjective Ratings of Mental Effort

Cited by 57 publications

References 67 publications

Older adults show a more sustained pattern of effortful listening than young adults

Older adults show a more sustained pattern of effortful listening than young adults

Top-down modulation of neural envelope tracking: the interplay with behavioral, self-report and neural measures of listening effort

Listening effort: Are we measuring cognition or affect, or both?

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