Hearing-impaired listeners commonly report feelings of anxiety, stress, and mental fatigue in response to communication demands in social settings. These concerns are typically documented using subjective reports and questionnaires. The goal of this project is to quantify the overall effort involved in speech perception as indicated by a physiological measure of stress. Preliminary studies indicate that heart rate variability, or the variability in timing between consecutive heart beats, can provide objective evidence of changes in effort required for understanding speech at various signal-to-noise ratios. This project will provide an objective measure of the effort required for hearing- impaired listeners to understand speech presented in noise in an unaided and aided condition. The outcomes will be compared to a cohort of age-matched, normal-hearing listeners.

Public Health Relevance

Hearing-impaired listeners commonly report feelings of anxiety, stress, and mental fatigue in response to communication demands in social settings. These concerns are typically documented using subjective reports and questionnaires. The goal of this project is to provide an objective measure of the overall effort involved in speech perception as indicated by heart rate variability, a physiological measure of stress.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
5R03DC011052-03
Application #
8286346
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZDC1-SRB-Y (54))
Program Officer
Donahue, Amy
Project Start
2010-07-01
Project End
2014-06-30
Budget Start
2012-07-01
Budget End
2014-06-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$147,620
Indirect Cost
$50,820
Name
Arizona State University-Tempe Campus
Department
Other Health Professions
Type
Schools of Allied Health Profes
DUNS #
943360412
City
Tempe
State
AZ
Country
United States
Zip Code
85287
Dorman, Michael F; Cook, Sarah; Spahr, Anthony et al. (2015) Factors constraining the benefit to speech understanding of combining information from low-frequency hearing and a cochlear implant. Hear Res 322:107-11
Spahr, Anthony J; Dorman, Michael F; Litvak, Leonid M et al. (2014) Development and validation of the pediatric AzBio sentence lists. Ear Hear 35:418-22
Dorman, Michael F; Spahr, Anthony J; Loiselle, Louise et al. (2013) Localization and speech understanding by a patient with bilateral cochlear implants and bilateral hearing preservation. Ear Hear 34:245-8
Zhang, Ting; Spahr, Anthony J; Dorman, Michael F et al. (2013) Relationship between auditory function of nonimplanted ears and bimodal benefit. Ear Hear 34:133-41
Dorman, Michael F; Spahr, Anthony; Gifford, Rene H et al. (2012) Current research with cochlear implants at Arizona State University. J Am Acad Audiol 23:385-95
Dorman, Michael; Spahr, Anthony; Gifford, Rene H et al. (2012) BILATERAL AND BIMODAL BENEFITS AS A FUNCTION OF AGE FOR ADULTS FITTED WITH A COCHLEAR IMPLANT. J Hear Sci 2:EA37-EA39
Dorman, Michael; Spahr, Anthony; Gifford, Rene H et al. (2012) Bilateral and bimodal benefit as a function of age for adults. J Hear Sci 2:37-39