Two amplification features were examined using auditory tasks that varied in stimulus familiarity. It was expected that the benefits of certain amplification features would increase as the familiarity with the stimuli decreased. A total of 20 children and 15 adults with normal hearing as well as 21 children and 17 adults with mild to severe hearing loss participated. Three models of ear-level devices were selected based on the quality of the high-frequency amplification or the digital noise reduction (DNR) they provided. The devices were fitted to each participant and used during testing only. Participants completed three tasks: (a) word recognition, (b) repetition and lexical decision of real and nonsense words, and (c) novel word learning. Performance improved significantly with amplification for both the children and the adults with hearing loss. Performance improved further with wideband amplification for the children more than for the adults. In steady-state noise and multitalker babble, performance decreased for both groups with little to no benefit from amplification or from the use of DNR. When compared with the listeners with normal hearing, significantly poorer performance was observed for both the children and adults with hearing loss on all tasks with few exceptions. Finally, analysis of across-task performance confirmed the hypothesis that benefit increased as the familiarity of the stimuli decreased for wideband amplification but not for DNR. However, users who prefer DNR for listening comfort are not likely to jeopardize their ability to detect and learn new information when using this feature.

Adults retain the skills necessary for lexical acquisition regardless of hearing status. However, uncorrected hearing loss nearly eliminates these skills.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine whether long-term musical training enhances the ability to perceive and learn new auditory information. Listeners with extensive musical experience were expected to detect, learn, and retain novel words more effectively than participants without musical training. Advantages of musical training were expected to be greater for words learned in multitalker babble compared to quiet. Method Participants consisted of 20 young adult musicians and 20 age-matched nonmusicians, all with normal hearing. In addition to completing word recognition and nonword detection tasks, each participant learned 10 novel words in a rapid word-learning paradigm. All tasks were completed in quiet and in multitalker babble. Next-day retention of the learned words was examined in isolation (recall) and in the context of continuous discourse (detection). Performance was compared across groups and listening conditions. Results Performance was significantly poorer in babble than in quiet on word recognition and nonword detection, but not on word learning, learned-word recall, or learned-word detection. No differences were observed between groups (musicians vs. nonmusicians) on any of the tasks. Conclusions For young normal-hearing adults, auditory experience resulting from long-term music training did not enhance their learning of new auditory information in either favorable (quiet) or unfavorable (babble) listening conditions. This suggests that the formation of semantic and musical representations in memory may be supported by the same underlying auditory processes, such that musical training is simply an extension of an auditory expertise that both musicians and nonmusicians possess.

Hearing aid fitting formulas intended for the pediatric population can differ by 6 to 25 dB in prescribed output across frequency leading to large variations in aided audibility. Children perceive these differences and have expressed preferences that favor more audibility for quiet speech and less audibility for noisy speech. In this study, the effect of variations in audibility consistent with hearing aid fittings for children was examined. Sixteen children and adolescents (9–17 years) with mild-to-moderate hearing loss participated. Hearing aids programed to National Acoustic Laboratories or Desired Sensation Level v5.0a targets were fitted to each participant. Also, separate programs with and without a low-level adaptive gain feature were provided with each prescription. Speech reception threshold (SRT) was measured as well as performance for four suprathreshold auditory tasks that increased in cognitive demand. These tasks were word recognition, nonword detection, multiword recall, and rapid word learning. A significant effect of fitting formula, but not low-level or adaptive gain, was observed for SRT. Significant effects of presentation level, fitting formula, and low-level gain were observed for word recognition. The effect of presentation level was significant for nonword detection, multiword recall, and rapid word learning but no other main effects or interactions were significant. Finally, word recognition and nonword detection increased significantly with audibility while multiword recall and word learning did not. The results suggest that audibility assists with the initial perception of auditory input but plays a smaller role in memory formation and learning.