Hearing Sciences - Scottish Section, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Ear Hear. 2022;43(5):1395-1401. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001202. Epub 2022 Jan 13.
Tests of hearing function are typically conducted in conditions very different from those in which people need to hear and communicate. Even when test conditions are more similar, they cannot represent the diversity of situations that may be encountered by individuals in daily life. As a consequence, it is necessary to consider external validity: the extent to which findings are likely to generalize to conditions beyond those in which data are collected. External validity has long been a concern in many fields and has led to the development of theories and methods aimed at improving generalizability of laboratory findings. Within hearing science, along with related fields, efforts to address generalizability have come to focus heavily on realism: the extent to which laboratory conditions are similar to conditions found in everyday settings of interest. In fact, it seems that realism is now tacitly equated with generalizability. The term that has recently been applied to this approach by many researchers is ecological validity . Recent usage of the term ecological validity within hearing science, as well as other fields, is problematic for three related reasons: (i) it encourages the conflation of the separate concepts of realism and validity; (ii) it diverts attention from the need for methods of quantifying generalization directly; and (iii) it masks a useful longstanding definition of ecological validity within the field of ecological psychology. The definition of ecological validity first used within ecological psychology-the correlation between cues received at the peripheral nervous system and the identity of distant objects or events in the environment-is entirely different from its current usage in hearing science and many related fields. However, as part of an experimental approach known as representative design , the original concept of ecological validity can play a valuable role in facilitating generalizability. This paper will argue that separate existing terms should be used when referring to realism and generalizability, and that the definition of ecological validity provided by the Lens Model may be a valuable conceptual tool within hearing science.
听觉功能测试通常在与人们需要听到和交流的环境非常不同的条件下进行。即使测试条件更为相似，它们也无法代表个体在日常生活中可能遇到的各种情况。因此，有必要考虑外部有效性：研究结果在多大程度上可能推广到收集数据之外的情况。外部有效性长期以来一直是许多领域关注的问题，并导致了旨在提高实验室发现可推广性的理论和方法的发展。在听觉科学以及相关领域内，解决可推广性的努力已越来越侧重于现实性：实验室条件与感兴趣的日常环境条件的相似程度。事实上，现在似乎已经默认将现实性等同于可推广性。最近，许多研究人员将这个方法称为生态有效性。最近在听觉科学以及其他领域中使用的术语“生态有效性”存在三个相关问题：（i）它鼓励将现实性和有效性这两个独立概念混淆；（ii）它分散了人们对直接量化推广的需求的注意力；（iii）它掩盖了生态心理学领域内长期以来对生态有效性的有用定义。首先在生态心理学中使用的生态有效性定义——外周神经系统接收的线索与环境中远处物体或事件的身份之间的相关性——与它在听觉科学和许多相关领域中的当前用法完全不同。然而，作为代表性设计这种实验方法的一部分，生态有效性的原始概念可以在促进推广方面发挥宝贵作用。本文将论证，在提及现实性和可推广性时应使用单独的现有术语，并且 Lens 模型提供的生态有效性定义可能是听觉科学中的一个有价值的概念工具。
