Yes / Purpose: Listening-related fatigue is a potential negative consequence of challenges experienced during everyday listening, and may disproportionately affect older adults. Contrary to expectation, we recently found that increased reports of listening-related fatigue were associated with better performance on a dichotic listening task (McGarrigle et al., 2021a). However, this link was found only in individuals who reported heightened sensitivity to a variety of physical, social, and emotional stimuli (i.e., increased ‘sensory-processing sensitivity’; SPS). The current study examined whether perceived effort may underlie the link between performance and fatigue. Methods: 206 young adults, aged 18-30 years (Experiment 1) and 122 older adults, aged 60-80 years (Experiment 2) performed a dichotic listening task and were administered a series of questionnaires including: the NASA task load index of perceived effort, the Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale (measuring daily life listening-related fatigue) and the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (measuring SPS). Both experiments were completed online. Results: SPS predicted listening-related fatigue but perceived effort during the listening task was not associated with SPS or listening-related fatigue in either age group. We were also unable to replicate the interaction between dichotic listening performance and SPS in either group. Exploratory analyses revealed contrasting effects of age; older adults found the dichotic listening task more effortful, but indicated lower overall fatigue. Conclusions: These findings suggest that SPS is a better predictor of listening-related fatigue than performance or effort ratings on a dichotic listening task. SPS may be an important factor in determining an individual’s likelihood of experiencing listening-related fatigue irrespective of hearing or cognitive ability. / This research was supported by an ESRC New Investigator Award (ES/R003572/1) to Ronan McGarrigle.

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Adults with hearing loss who report difficulty understanding speech with and without hearing aids often also report increased mental or listening effort. Although speech recognition measures are well known and have been in use for decades, measures of listening effort are relatively new and include objective measures such as working memory tasks, pupillometry, heart rate, skin conductance, and brain imaging. This purpose of this study is to evaluate an electroencephalogram (EEG)-based method to assess cognitive states associated with high frequency alpha (10-13 Hz) and theta (4-8 Hz) during effortful listening. Changes in high frequency alpha have been associated with semantic memory and cognitive demands. In addition, changes in theta have been associated with encoding information and increased listening effort. Correlations between EEG frequency recordings, self-report, and behavioral measures in speech recognition and auditory working memory tasks will be described. Results will be presented demonstrating the extent to which high frequency alpha predicts word recognition in noise performance and self-reported listening effort.

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Adults with hearing loss typically experience difficulty understanding speech and report increased mental effort or listening effort (Pichora-Fuller et al. 2016). Over time, or in difficult listening conditions, listening effort can cause stress and mental fatigue, contributing to negative psychosocial consequences (e.g., social withdrawal) or limited/discontinued hearing-aid use (Eckert, et al., 2016; Pichora-Fuller, 2007). Additionally, the amount of listening effort required to recognize speech varies by individual and by listening condition (Pichora-Fuller, Kramer, Eckert, et al., 2016). Therefore, having a way to measure and account for listening effort in individual hearing aid fittings and aural rehabilitation plans may improve satisfaction and eventual hearing aid retention in those with hearing loss. Few objective measures are available to reliably predict listening effort in real world environments and many effort-related measures do not consider the specific neural systems that underlie listening effort (Zekveld et al., 2010; Smith et al. 2016; McMahon et al. 2016). The purpose of this study is to evaluate an electroencephalogram (EEG)-based method for quantifying listening effort based on the power of the cortical EEG response. Spectral power estimates within different EEG frequency domains that represent the activity of attention-related neural systems were calculated and included: (1) low-frequency alpha (8-10 Hz; LFA) power that has been associated with increased working memory task demands (Klimesch, 1999); (2) high-frequency alpha (10-13 Hz; HFA) power that has been associated with semantic memory and cognitive demands (Klimesch, 1999); and (3) theta (4-7 Hz) power that has been associated with encoding information (Klimesch, 1999) and increased listening effort (Wisniewski et al., 2015). The EEG data was collected during administration of the Words-In-Noise test (WIN; Wilson et al., 2003) and the Word Auditory Recognition and Recall Measure (WARRM; Smith et al., 2016) that induce listening effort due to low signal-to-noise ratio and due to auditory working memory demand, respectively. The results of correlations among EEG power in the three frequency ranges, WIN performance, WAARM performance, and self-report measures of listening effort will be presented. These results will be supported by independent component source analysis of EEG frequencies for regions of interest predicted to contribute to listening effort, including the frontal midline, auditory cortex, and parietal lobe. The EEG measures are expected to collectively explain task performance and self-reported listening effort.