TY - JOUR
T1 - Unilateral and bilateral hearing aids, spatial release from masking and auditory acclimatization
AU - Dawes, Piers
AU - Munro, Kevin J.
AU - Kalluri, Sridhar
AU - Edwards, Brent
N1 - Copyright 2013 Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America. The following article appeared in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134(1), 596-606. and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4807783.
PY - 2013/7
Y1 - 2013/7
N2 - Spatial release from masking (SRM) was tested within the first week of fitting and after 12 weeks hearing aid use for unilateral and bilateral adult hearing aid users. A control group of experienced hearing aid users completed testing over a similar time frame. The main research aims were (1) to examine auditory acclimatization effects on SRM performance for unilateral and bilateral hearing aid users, (2) to examine whether hearing aid use, level of hearing loss, age or cognitive ability mediate acclimatization, and (3) to compare and contrast the outcome of unilateral versus bilateral aiding on SRM. Hearing aid users were tested with and without hearing aids, with SRM calculated as the 50% speech recognition threshold advantage when maskers and target are spatially separated at ±90° azimuth to the listener compared to a co-located condition. The conclusions were (1) on average there was no improvement over time in familiar aided listening conditions, (2) there was large test-retest variability which may overshadow small average acclimatization effects; greater improvement was associated with better cognitive ability and younger age, but not associated with hearing aid use, and (3) overall, bilateral aids facilitated better SRM performance than unilateral aids.
AB - Spatial release from masking (SRM) was tested within the first week of fitting and after 12 weeks hearing aid use for unilateral and bilateral adult hearing aid users. A control group of experienced hearing aid users completed testing over a similar time frame. The main research aims were (1) to examine auditory acclimatization effects on SRM performance for unilateral and bilateral hearing aid users, (2) to examine whether hearing aid use, level of hearing loss, age or cognitive ability mediate acclimatization, and (3) to compare and contrast the outcome of unilateral versus bilateral aiding on SRM. Hearing aid users were tested with and without hearing aids, with SRM calculated as the 50% speech recognition threshold advantage when maskers and target are spatially separated at ±90° azimuth to the listener compared to a co-located condition. The conclusions were (1) on average there was no improvement over time in familiar aided listening conditions, (2) there was large test-retest variability which may overshadow small average acclimatization effects; greater improvement was associated with better cognitive ability and younger age, but not associated with hearing aid use, and (3) overall, bilateral aids facilitated better SRM performance than unilateral aids.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84880470417&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1121/1.4807783
DO - 10.1121/1.4807783
M3 - Article
C2 - 23862834
AN - SCOPUS:84880470417
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 134
SP - 596
EP - 606
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 1
ER -