Effect of Dual Sensory Loss on Auditory Localization: Implications for Intervention

Simon, Helen J.; Levitt, Harry

doi:10.1177/1084713807308209

Cited by 22 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 115 publications

(177 reference statements)

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“…The current findings may have important clinical implications for individuals with dual visual and auditory losses who utilize hearing aids. Hearing aids are designed for sighted participants with impaired hearing (Simon and Levitt, 2007), and their design is predicated on the principle that improvement of the audibility of speech is the main priority (Gatehouse and Noble, 2004). Any distortion of spatial cues arising from hearing aid processing, such as alteration of absolute level or of interaural level, is assumed to be compensated by good visual capability (Simon and Levitt, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of virtual auditory distance judgments among blind and sighted listeners

Kolarik

Cirstea

Pardhan

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Auditory distance perception is a crucial component of blind listeners′ spatial awareness. Many studies have reported supra-normal spatial auditory abilities among blind individuals, such as enhanced azimuthal localization (Voss et al., 2004) and distance discrimination (Kolarik et al., 2013). However, it is not known whether blind listeners are better able to use acoustic information to enhance judgments of distance to single sound sources, or whether lack of visual spatial cues prevents calibration of auditory distance information, leading to worse performance than for sighted listeners. Blind and sighted listeners were presented with single, stationary virtual sound sources between 1.2 and 13.8 m away in a virtual anechoic environment simulated using an image-source model. Stimuli were spoken sentences. Sighted listeners systematically underestimated distance to remote virtual sources, while blind listeners overestimated the distance to nearby virtual sources and underestimated it for remote virtual sources. The findings suggest that blind listeners are less accurate at judging absolute distance, and experience a compression of the auditory world, relative to sighted listeners. The results support a perceptual deficiency hypothesis for absolute distance judgments, suggesting that compensatory processes for audition do not develop among blind listeners when estimating the distance to single, stationary sound sources.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of virtual auditory distance judgments among blind and sighted listeners

Kolarik

Cirstea

Pardhan

et al. 2013

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…4 indicates that there is ILD information above 10 kHz; conventional audiometric testing (which tests up to 8 kHz) and amplification (which extends up to 4 kHz) might be inadequate to reveal and ameliorate, respectively, auditory deficits relevant to some blind people. The signal processing in hearing prostheses, even if providing sufficient audibility of acoustic echolocation cues, might hinder object localisation (Simon and Levitt, 2007) through the distortion of ILDs by amplitude compression (Wiggins and Seeber, 2011) and through echo cancellation.…”

Section: What Is the Low-frequency Non-level Monaural Cue?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of binaural and monaural cues to identify the lateral position of a virtual object using echoes

et al. 2015

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Under certain conditions, sighted and blind humans can use echoes to discern characteristics of otherwise silent objects. Previous research concluded that robust horizontal-plane object localisation ability, without using head movement, depends on information above 2 kHz. While a strong interaural level difference (ILD) cue is available, it was not clear if listeners were using that or the monaural level cue that necessarily accompanies ILD. In this experiment, 13 sighted and normal-hearing listeners were asked to identify the right-vs.-left position of an object in virtual auditory space. Sounds were manipulated to remove binaural cues (binaural vs. diotic presentation) and prevent the use of monaural level cues (using level roving). With low- (<2 kHz) and high- (>2 kHz) frequency bands of noise, performance with binaural presentation and level rove exceeded that expected from use of monaural level cues and that with diotic presentation. It is argued that a high-frequency binaural cue (most likely ILD), and not a monaural level cue, is crucial for robust object localisation without head movement.

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“…The sound may be diicult to locate, especially for one who has combined visual impairment and hearing loss, who has diferent hearing aids in the right and left ear, or one who just uses a hearing aid in one ear [31].…”

Section: Presbycusis and Hearing Impairmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing Impairment in Old Age

Haanes¹

2017

Advances in Clinical Audiology

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BackgroundAge related hearing impairment is a risk factor for functional decline, reduced social participation and accidents. AimsTo obtain knowledge about the characteristics of age related hearing impairments and to help elderly optimize their hearing function. Design and methodStudy 1; Baseline description of data on hearing impairments. Study 2; ROC curve to compare self-assessments with a gold standard test. Study 3; RCT to test whether removal of earwax, and referral to a specialist can improve functional hearing. ResultsMore than 90% had hearing impairments. Mean PTAV was 40,4 dB. Self-assessment of hearing function with a single global question correlated only weakly with the PTAV measurements. Comparison yielded 18 false negatives, indicating many reported their hearing as good when the standardized test indicated that it was not. ConclusionElderly people live with hearing impairments not suiciently atended to. Asking about their hearing with a single global question will not provide accurate information. It is necessary to use standardized tests in addition. When asking more detailed questions about communication abilities, the elderly reported having diiculties. Many elderly could not be expected to do all the self-care activities necessary to improve their functional hearing. Close monitoring and assistance is recommended.

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Effect of Dual Sensory Loss on Auditory Localization: Implications for Intervention

Cited by 22 publications

References 115 publications

An assessment of virtual auditory distance judgments among blind and sighted listeners

An assessment of virtual auditory distance judgments among blind and sighted listeners

Use of binaural and monaural cues to identify the lateral position of a virtual object using echoes

Hearing Impairment in Old Age

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