Purpose: Difficulty understanding speech in noise is a common communication problem. Clinical tests of speech in noise differ considerably from real-world listening and offer patients limited intrinsic motivation to perform well. In order to design a test that captures motivational aspects of real-world communication, this study investigated effects of gamification, or the inclusion of game elements, on a laboratory spatial release from masking test. Method: Fifty-four younger adults with normal hearing completed a traditional laboratory and a gamified test of spatial release from masking in counterbalanced order. Masker level adapted based on performance, with the traditional test ending after 10 reversals and the gamified test ending when participants solved a visual puzzle. Target-to-masker ratio thresholds (TMRs) with colocated maskers, separated maskers, and estimates of spatial release were calculated after the 10th reversal for both tests and from the last six reversals of the adaptive track from the gamified test. Results: Thresholds calculated from the 10th reversal indicated no significant differences between the traditional and gamified tests. A learning effect was observed with spatially separated maskers, such that TMRs were better for the second test than the first, regardless of test order. Thresholds calculated from the last six reversals of the gamified test indicated better TMRs in the separated condition compared to the traditional test. Conclusions: Adding gamified elements to a traditional test of spatial release from masking did not negatively affect test validity or estimates of spatial release. Participants were willing to continue playing the gamified test for an average of 30.2 reversals of the adaptive track. For some listeners, performance in the separated condition continued to improve after the 10th reversal, leading to better TMRs and greater spatial release from masking at the end of the gamified test compared to the traditional test. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22028789
Accessibility issues, especially in developing countries, have prevented the evaluation of diverse hearing abilities beyond the pure tone audiogram in the general population. PART is a free-access automated auditory measurement tool that can address accessibility issues by providing a wide variety of auditory psychophysical measures in multiple languages on standard relatively low-cost commercial interfaces such as tablets and smart phones. Here, we show that PART can complement traditional audiological tests to better account for people’s hearing complaints. Forty-four adults between 40 and 80 years old were tested in Mexico City with a traditional clinical battery (otoacoustic emissions and pure tone audiogram) and a battery of PART-based central auditory processing and speech-on-speech competition measures. Several measures from the PART battery correlated with self-reported hearing difficulties, and the spatial release from masking task was best able to capture this variance. These preliminary data support the inclusion of a speech-on-speech masking as a complement to traditional clinical measures to better account for the hearing complaints of the public. Furthermore, we show PART-based version of this test can be implemented in a clinical setting in Mexico and produce comparable results to those obtained in developed countries like the United States of America.
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