Auditory Prostheses and Perception Lab, Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Ear Hear. 2019 Sep/Oct;40(5):1069-1083. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000000694.
Emotional communication is a cornerstone of social cognition and informs human interaction. Previous studies have shown deficits in facial and vocal emotion recognition in older adults, particularly for negative emotions. However, few studies have examined combined effects of aging and hearing loss on vocal emotion recognition by adults. The objective of this study was to compare vocal emotion recognition in adults with hearing loss relative to age-matched peers with normal hearing. We hypothesized that age would play a role in emotion recognition and that listeners with hearing loss would show deficits across the age range.
Thirty-two adults (22 to 74 years of age) with mild to severe, symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss, amplified with bilateral hearing aids and 30 adults (21 to 75 years of age) with normal hearing, participated in the study. Stimuli consisted of sentences spoken by 2 talkers, 1 male, 1 female, in 5 emotions (angry, happy, neutral, sad, and scared) in an adult-directed manner. The task involved a single-interval, five-alternative forced-choice paradigm, in which the participants listened to individual sentences and indicated which of the five emotions was targeted in each sentence. Reaction time was recorded as an indirect measure of cognitive load.
Results showed significant effects of age. Older listeners had reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and reduced d' values. Normal hearing listeners showed an Age by Talker interaction where older listeners had more difficulty identifying male vocal emotion. Listeners with hearing loss showed reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and lower d' values compared with age-matched normal-hearing listeners. Within the group with hearing loss, age and talker effects were significant, and low-frequency pure-tone averages showed a marginally significant effect. Contrary to other studies, once hearing thresholds were taken into account, no effects of listener sex were observed, nor were there effects of individual emotions on accuracy. However, reaction times and d' values showed significant differences between individual emotions.
The results of this study confirm existing findings in the literature showing that older adults show significant deficits in voice emotion recognition compared with their normally hearing peers, and that among listeners with normal hearing, age-related changes in hearing do not predict this age-related deficit. The present results also add to the literature by showing that hearing impairment contributes additionally to deficits in vocal emotion recognition, separate from deficits related to age. These effects of age and hearing loss appear to be quite robust, being evident in reduced accuracy scores and d' measures, as well as in reaction time measures.
情感交流是社会认知的基石，它影响着人类的互动。先前的研究表明，老年人在面部和声音情绪识别方面存在缺陷，尤其是对负面情绪。然而，很少有研究调查年龄增长和听力损失对成年人声音情绪识别的综合影响。本研究的目的是比较听力损失成年人与年龄匹配的正常听力成年人在声音情绪识别方面的差异。我们假设年龄会在情绪识别中发挥作用，并且听力损失的听众在整个年龄范围内都会出现缺陷。
32 名成年人（22 至 74 岁）患有轻度至重度、双侧对称的感音神经性听力损失，使用双侧助听器放大，30 名成年人（21 至 75 岁）具有正常听力，参与了这项研究。刺激物由 2 名说话者（1 名男性，1 名女性）以成人指导的方式说出的 5 种情绪（愤怒、快乐、中性、悲伤和恐惧）的句子组成。任务涉及单一间隔、五选一的强制选择范式，参与者听取单个句子并指出每个句子中目标的情绪是哪一种。反应时间被记录为认知负荷的间接测量。
结果显示年龄有显著影响。年长的听众准确性降低，反应时间增加，d'值降低。正常听力的听众表现出年龄与说话者的交互作用，年长的听众更难识别男性的声音情绪。与年龄匹配的正常听力听众相比，听力损失的听众准确性降低，反应时间增加，d'值降低。在听力损失组中，年龄和说话者的影响是显著的，低频纯音平均值有边缘显著的影响。与其他研究相反，一旦考虑到听力阈值，就不会观察到听众性别的影响，也不会观察到个体情绪对准确性的影响。然而，反应时间和 d'值在个体情绪之间显示出显著差异。
本研究的结果证实了文献中的现有发现，即与正常听力的同龄人相比，老年人在声音情绪识别方面存在显著缺陷，并且在正常听力的听众中，与年龄相关的听力变化并不能预测这种与年龄相关的缺陷。本研究结果还通过表明听力障碍除了与年龄相关的缺陷外，还会导致声音情绪识别缺陷，从而增加了文献的内容。这些年龄和听力损失的影响似乎非常显著，表现在准确性得分和 d'测量值以及反应时间测量值的降低上。
