Auditory Environments and Hearing Aid Feature Activation Among Younger and Older Listeners in an Urban and Rural Area

Jorgensen, Erik; Xu, Jingjing; Chipara, Octav; Oleson, Jacob; Galster, Jason; Wu, Yu-Hsiang

doi:10.1097/aud.0000000000001308

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Findings in the present study are broadly consistent with the findings in ( 7 ), where younger listeners were observed to encounter higher SPLs and greater likelihood of hearing aid feature activation than older listeners. This study extends those findings to formally quantify that younger listeners, and particularly younger listeners in an urban area, also encounter more diverse auditory environments than older listeners, and particularly older listeners in a rural area.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The dataset from ( 7 ) was used for this analysis. In that study, 46 participants were recruited in four groups: older listeners with hearing loss from an urban area (OHL-U), older listeners with hearing loss from a rural area (OHL-R), younger listeners with normal hearing from and urban area (YNH-U), and younger listeners with normal hearing from a rural area (YNH-R).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Technological improvements have enabled new methods for collecting real-world environment data from daily life. One such method is to use the hearing aids to collect data about the environment, including the sound pressure level (SPL), hearing aid environment classification, and the hearing aid processing state ( 3 , 5 , 7 ). An open question, however, is how to use these data effectively to characterize the environments users encounter and draw useful conclusions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An open question, however, is how to use these data effectively to characterize the environments users encounter and draw useful conclusions. The common approach has been to describe averages and proportions, typically average sound pressure levels and proportions of environment types ( 3 , 5 , 7 ). This approach offers a limited view into the auditory environments and lifestyles of hearing aid users.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To that end, this study presents an analysis of the data described in ( 7 ). The purpose of that study was to investigate differences in auditory environments and hearing aid feature activation encountered by different demographic groups: younger participants with normal hearing and older participants with hearing loss living in an urban or rural area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Auditory environment diversity quantified using entropy from real-world hearing aid data

Jorgensen

Chipara

et al. 2023

Front. Digit. Health

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IntroductionUsing data collected from hearing aid users’ own hearing aids could improve the customization of hearing aid processing for different users based on the auditory environments they encounter in daily life. Prior studies characterizing hearing aid users’ auditory environments have focused on mean sound pressure levels and proportions of environments based on classifications. In this study, we extend these approaches by introducing entropy to quantify the diversity of auditory environments hearing aid users encounter.Materials and MethodsParticipants from 4 groups (younger listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with hearing loss from an urban or rural area) wore research hearing aids and completed ecological momentary assessments on a smartphone for 1 week. The smartphone was programmed to sample the processing state (input sound pressure level and environment classification) of the hearing aids every 10 min and deliver an ecological momentary assessment every 40 min. Entropy values for sound pressure levels, environment classifications, and ecological momentary assessment responses were calculated for each participant to quantify the diversity of auditory environments encountered over the course of the week. Entropy values between groups were compared. Group differences in entropy were compared to prior work reporting differences in mean sound pressure levels and proportions of environment classifications. Group differences in entropy measured objectively from the hearing aid data were also compared to differences in entropy measured from the self-report ecological momentary assessment data.ResultsAuditory environment diversity, quantified using entropy from the hearing aid data, was significantly higher for younger listeners than older listeners. Entropy measured using ecological momentary assessment was also significantly higher for younger listeners than older listeners.DiscussionUsing entropy, we show that younger listeners experience a greater diversity of auditory environments than older listeners. Alignment of group entropy differences with differences in sound pressure levels and hearing aid feature activation previously reported, along with alignment with ecological momentary response entropy, suggests that entropy is a valid and useful metric. We conclude that entropy is a simple and intuitive way to measure auditory environment diversity using hearing aid data.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Auditory environment diversity quantified using entropy from real-world hearing aid data

Jorgensen

Chipara

et al. 2023

Front. Digit. Health

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Implementing Ecological Momentary Assessment in Audiological Research: Opportunities and Challenges

Schinkel-Bielefeld,

Burke,

Holube

et al. 2024

Am J Audiol

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Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a way to evaluate experiences in everyday life. It is a powerful research tool but can be complex and challenging for beginners. Application of EMA in audiological research brings with it opportunities and challenges that differ from other research disciplines. This tutorial discusses important considerations when conducting EMA studies in hearing care. While more research is needed to develop specific guidelines for the various potential applications of EMA in hearing research, we hope this article can alert hearing researchers new to EMA to pitfalls when using EMA and help strengthen their study design. The current article elaborates study design details, such as choice of participants, representativeness of the study period for participants' lives, and balancing participant burden with data requirements. Mobile devices and sensors to collect objective data on the acoustic situation are reviewed alongside different possibilities for EMA setups ranging from online questionnaires paired with a timer to proprietary apps that also have access to parameters of a hearing device. In addition to considerations for survey design, a list of questionnaire items from previous studies is provided. For each item, an example and a list of references are given. EMA typically provides data sets that are rich but also challenging in that they are noisy, and there is often unequal amount of data between participants. After recommendations on how to check the data for compliance, reactivity, and careless responses, methods for statistical analysis on the individual level and on the group level are discussed including special methods for direct comparison of hearing device programs.

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Effects of entropy in real-world noise on speech perception in listeners with normal hearing and hearing loss

Jorgensen,

2023

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Hearing aids show more benefit in traditional laboratory speech-in-noise tests than in real-world noisy environments. Real-world noise comprises a large range of acoustic properties that vary randomly and rapidly between and within environments, making quantifying real-world noise and using it in experiments and clinical tests challenging. One approach is to use acoustic features and statistics to quantify acoustic properties of real-world noise and control for them or measure their relationship to listening performance. In this study, the complexity of real-world noise from different environments was quantified using entropy in both the time- and frequency-domains. A distribution of noise segments from low to high entropy were extracted. Using a trial-by-trial design, listeners with normal hearing and hearing loss (in aided and unaided conditions) repeated back sentences embedded in these noise segments. Entropy significantly affected speech perception, with a larger effect of entropy in the time-domain than the frequency-domain, a larger effect for listeners with normal hearing than for listeners with hearing loss, and a larger effect for listeners with hearing loss in the aided than unaided condition. Speech perception also differed between most environment types. Combining entropy with the environment type improved predictions of speech perception above the environment type alone.

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Auditory Environments and Hearing Aid Feature Activation Among Younger and Older Listeners in an Urban and Rural Area

Cited by 3 publications

References 48 publications

Auditory environment diversity quantified using entropy from real-world hearing aid data

Auditory environment diversity quantified using entropy from real-world hearing aid data

Implementing Ecological Momentary Assessment in Audiological Research: Opportunities and Challenges

Effects of entropy in real-world noise on speech perception in listeners with normal hearing and hearing loss

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