Hearing Sciences - Scottish Section, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Glasgow, UK.
Institute of Health and Wellbeing, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Int J Audiol. 2022 Nov;61(11):940-947. doi: 10.1080/14992027.2021.1998676. Epub 2021 Nov 11.
In the personalisation of hearing-aid fittings, gain is often adjusted to suit patient preferences using live speech. When using brief sentences as stimuli, the minimum gain adjustments necessary to elicit consistent preferences ("preference thresholds") were previously found to be much greater than typical adjustments in current practice. The current study examined the role of duration on preference thresholds.
Participants heard 2, 4 and 6-s segments of a continuous monologue presented successively in pairs. The first segment of each pair was presented at each individual's real-ear or prescribed gain. The second segment was presented with a ±0-12 dB gain adjustment in one of three frequency bands. Participants judged whether the second was "better", "worse" or "no different" from the first.
Twenty-nine adults, all with hearing-aid experience.
The minimum gain adjustments needed to elicit "better" or "worse" judgments decreased with increasing duration for most adjustments. Inter-participant agreement and intra-participant reliability increased with increasing duration up to 4 s, then remained stable.
Providing longer stimuli improves the likelihood of patients providing reliable judgments of hearing-aid gain adjustments, but the effect is limited, and alternative fitting methods may be more viable for effective hearing-aid personalisation.
在助听器适配的个性化过程中,增益通常根据患者的喜好进行调整,使用实时语音作为刺激。当使用简短的句子作为刺激时,之前发现为了引出一致的偏好而进行的最小增益调整(“偏好阈值”)比当前实践中的典型调整要大得多。本研究探讨了时长对偏好阈值的影响。
参与者依次成对地听到一段连续独白的 2、4 和 6 秒片段。每对的第一段以个体的实际增益或处方增益呈现。第二段在三个频带中的一个频带中以±0-12dB 的增益调整呈现。参与者判断第二段是否比第一段“更好”、“更差”或“无差异”。
29 名成年人,均有助听器佩戴经验。
对于大多数调整,引出“更好”或“更差”判断所需的最小增益调整随着时长的增加而减小。参与者间的一致性和参与者内的可靠性随着时长的增加而增加,在 4 秒时达到最大值,然后保持稳定。
提供更长的刺激可以提高患者提供可靠的助听器增益调整判断的可能性,但效果有限,并且可能需要其他适配方法才能更有效地实现助听器的个性化。