Influence of age on speech intelligibility threshold and listening effort in noise.

Good hearing in noise is necessary for communication. In unilateral deafness an improvement can be achieved e.g. by a cochlear implant (CI). Hearing and listening effort in noise can be measured with the Oldenburg sentence test (OLSA) and ACALES test in different acoustic environments. It is unclear how much hearing in noise, which is independent of the pure-tone threshold in quiet, decreases with age and how much listening effort increases. Age-dependent normative data are lacking for OLSA and ACALES, but are necessary for assessing aided hearing performance. A prospective, clinical-experimental cohort study included 96 normal-hearing individuals (16/age decade). The 50% speech intelligibility threshold in OLSA (SRT50) was measured when sentences were presented in the angular conditions S0N0, S0N0N45N45, and S0N135N180N135 and when olnoise and icra5 were used as noise. Auditory effort was measured for the S0N180 and S0N0 conditions with the same noise on a 7-point subjective scale. Data from 50 subjects showed an SRT50 in olnoise of -6.2 dB SNR (SD: 1.2 dB) for S0N0 presentation, which improved to -11.4 dB SNR (SD: 1.7 dB) for S0N135N180N135. In icra5, SRT of -16.3 dB SNR (SD: 2.7 dB) (S0N0) and -19.9 dB SNR (S0N180) (SD: 4.4 dB) were achieved. The decrease in SRT with age was significant and was 0.35-0.47 dB/decade (olnoise) and 0.8-1.8 dB/decade (icra5). There was no age effect measured for listening effort. The data show that hearing in noise decreases linearly with age, and the decrease is independent of the room acoustic situation studied. The data can be used as a reference for the study of patients with CI.

Cochlear Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG

Publication History

Article published online:
12 May 2023