Speech audiometry, attention and aging

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hartmut Meister
• Subject Area: Otolaryngology, Phoniatrics and Audiology
• Term: from 2018 to 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398038798

• Final Report Year: 2025

Final Report Abstract

In conjunction with the first project phase, this project addressed aspects of attention in the context of extended speech audiometric methods in individuals of different ages with and without hearing impairments. This primarily included the comparison of static and dynamic cocktail-party situations, which takes into account different types of attention (selective, divided, switching). Situations with dynamically switching target talkers generate ‘costs’ compared to static situations and are highly relevant to everyday life. They are therefore of particular interest for an ecologically valid assessment of speech recognition and the resulting cognitive load. In addition to fundamental age- and hearing loss-associated effects in dynamic cocktail-party situations, which were described in the first project phase, the second phase focussed on more specific aspects. These included the investigation of laterality effects, spatial sluggishness effects when switching attention, and semantic context effects in dynamically alternating talkers. It was found that the advantage of the right ear previously described with very simple dichotic stimuli (e.g. syllables) also arises in cocktail-party situations and is particularly pronounced under the cognitive load of a dynamic situation. This was observed regardless of the age and hearing loss of the study participants. With regard to the spatial sluggishness effects based on the previous literature on psychoacoustic mechanisms, it was expected that the costs for dynamically changing talkers would be higher if larger angular steps were bridged between the speaker positions. However, no such relationship could be found, so that there may be different mechanisms for understanding speech than for the simple acoustic stimuli described in the literature to date. With regard to semantic context effects the results obtained were also not consistent with the hypothesis. While it was expected that everyday sentences cause lower costs in dynamic situations than matrix sentences due to their contextual information, the opposite was found, which tended to be particularly pronounced in the older participants. One possible explanation is that the use of contextual information itself and, on the other hand, the inhibition of competing language with a high semantic context are associated with a cognitive load that increases the costs of dynamic talker changes. Overall, the project has made a comprehensive contribution with regard to speech recognition in dynamic cocktail-party situations relevant to everyday life, which can be used for the further development of ecologically valid methods for assessing the effects of hearing impairments and hearing rehabilitation.

Publications

• Static and dynamic cocktail party listening in younger and older adults. Hearing Research, 395, 108020.
  Meister, Hartmut; Wenzel, Fabian; Gehlen, Axel Kai; Kessler, Josef & Walger, Martin
  
• Costs of dynamic cocktail party listening: Investigating the effects of cognitive abilities and hearing impairment. JASA Express Letters, 1(7).
  Wächtler, Moritz; Kessler, Josef; Walger, Martin & Meister, Hartmut
  
• Revealing Perceptional and Cognitive Mechanisms in Static and Dynamic Cocktail Party Listening by Means of Error Analyses. Trends in Hearing, 26.
  Wächtler, Moritz; Kessler, Josef; Walger, Martin & Meister, Hartmut
  
• Der Vorteil des rechten Ohres in statischen und dynamischen Cocktail-Party-Situationen. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Audiologie e.V., 25. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Audiologie. Köln, 1.-3. März 2023
  Wächtler, M., Sandmann, P., Kessler, J., Walger, M. & Meister, H.
  
• Der Vorteil des rechten Ohres in statischen und dynamischen Cocktail-Party-Situationen. 95. Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hals- Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie e.V. Essen, 8.-11. Mai 2024
  Wächtler, M., Sandmann, P. & Meister H.
  
• Exploring the effect of semantic context in dynamic cocktail-party listening. Speech in noise workshop (SpiN) in Potsdam, Deutschland, 11.–12. Januar 2024
  Wächtler, M. & Meister, H.
  
• Semantische Kontexteffekte in statischen und dynamischen Cocktail- Party-Situationen. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Audiologie e.V.. 26. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Audiologie. Aalen, 6.-8. März 2024
  Wächtler, M. & Meister, H.
  
• The Right-Ear Advantage in Static and Dynamic Cocktail-Party Situations. Trends in Hearing, 28.
  Wächtler, Moritz; Sandmann, Pascale & Meister, Hartmut
  
• The right-ear advantage in static and dynamic cocktailparty situations. Speech in noise workshop (SpiN) in Potsdam, Deutschland, 11.–12. Januar 2024
  Wächtler, M., Sandmann, P. & Meister H.
  
• The effect of semantic context in dynamic cocktail-party listening: Influences of age and hearing loss. Speech in noise workshop (SpiN) in Lancaster, UK, 9.–10. Januar 2025
  Wächtler, M. & Meister, H.