Contribution
Evaluating Hearing Aid Benefit and Preference in the Real World
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Experience sampling via ecological momentary assessment (EMA) offers valuable insights into hearing-related outcomes in daily life beyond what clinical tests can provide. Participants typically respond to questions through mobile interfaces several times a day while using different hearing-aid technologies. However, identical listening situations can result in varied perceptual experiences due to differences in noise levels or listening intentions. It is therefore crucial to disentangle contextual effects from true hearing-aid effects by, for example, accounting for the auditory environment.I will present results from studies that combine EMA with passive sensing of the auditory environment to establish real-world evidence regarding hearing-aid benefits and preferences. For example, we discovered that hearing-aid noise management significantly increases satisfaction with hearing aids for “speech in noise” environments and that newer deep neural network-based noise management systems, in contrast to traditional ones, further improve hearing outcomes by rendering hearing satisfaction less dependent on ambient noise. I will also discuss how passive sensing of peripheral physiology (e.g., using fitness trackers) can account for effort and fatigue when participants evaluate listening experiences in the real world, and potentially aid in determining ongoing listening intentions to further increase the construct validity of the EMA approach for evaluating hearing-aid technology.