Objective-To develop and evaluate a 12-item version of the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale for use in clinical research and rehabilitation settings, and provide a formula for converting scores between the full (SSQ49) and abbreviated (SSQ12) versions.Design-Items were selected independently at the three centres (Eriksholm, MRC Institute of Hearing Research, University of New England) to be representative of the complete scale. A consensus was achieved after discussion.Study Sample-The data set (n=1220) used for a factor analysis (Akeroyd et al., submitted) was re-analysed to compare original SSQ scores (SSQ49) with scores on the short version (SSQ12).Results-A scatter-plot of SSQ12 scores against SSQ49 scores showed that SSQ12 score was about 0.6 of a scale point lower than the SSQ49 (0-10 scale) in the re-analysis of the Akeroyd et al. data. SSQ12 scores lay on a slightly steeper slope than scores on the SSQ49. Conclusions-The SSQ12 provides similar results to SSQ49 in a large clinical research sample. The slightly lower average SSQ12 score and the slightly steeper slope reflect the composition of this short form relative to the SSQ49.

This study aimed to clarify the basic auditory and cognitive processes that affect listeners' performance on two spatial listening tasks: sound localization and speech recognition in spatially complex, multi-talker situations. Twenty-three elderly listeners with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing impairments were tested on the two spatial listening tasks, a measure of monaural spectral ripple discrimination, a measure of binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) sensitivity, and two (visual) cognitive measures indexing working memory and attention. All auditory test stimuli were spectrally shaped to restore (partial) audibility for each listener on each listening task. Eight younger normal-hearing listeners served as a control group. Data analyses revealed that the chosen auditory and cognitive measures could predict neither sound localization accuracy nor speech recognition when the target and maskers were separated along the front-back dimension. When the competing talkers were separated along the left-right dimension, however, speech recognition performance was significantly correlated with the attentional measure. Furthermore, supplementary analyses indicated additional effects of binaural TFS sensitivity and average low-frequency hearing thresholds. Altogether, these results are in support of the notion that both bottom-up and top-down deficits are responsible for the impaired functioning of elderly hearing-impaired listeners in cocktail party-like situations.

This suggests that own voice is a potentially important concern, even for hearing-aid users who are not expected to have occlusion-related problems.

This study investigated a method to adjust hearing-aid gain by use of a machine-learning algorithm that estimates the optimal setting of gain parameters based on user preference indicated in an iterative paired-comparison procedure. Twenty hearing-impaired participants completed this procedure for 12 different sound scenarios. During the adjustment procedure, their task was to indicate a preference based on one of three sound attributes: Basic Audio Quality, Listening Comfort, or Speech Clarity. In a double-blind comparison of recordings of the processed scenarios, and using the same attributes as criteria, the adjusted gain settings were subsequently compared with two prescribed settings of the same hearing aid (with and without activation of an automatic sound-classification system). The results showed that the adjustment method provided a general improvement of Basic Audio Quality, an improvement of Listening Comfort in a traffic-noise scenario but not in three scenarios with speech babble, and no significant improvement of Speech Clarity. A large variation in gain adjustments was observed across participants, both among those who did benefit and among those who did not benefit from the adjustment. There was no clear connection between the gain adjustments and the perceived benefit, which indicates that the preferred gain settings for a given sound scenario and a given listening intention are highly individual and difficult to predict.

The potential benefits of preserving high-frequency spectral cues created by the pinna in hearing-aid fittings were investigated in a combined laboratory and field test. In a single-blind crossover design, two settings of an experimental hearing aid were compared. One setting was characterized by a pinna cue-preserving microphone position, whereas the other was characterized by a microphone position not preserving pinna cues. Participants were allowed 1 month of acclimatization to each setting before measurements of localization and spatial release from speech-on-speech masking were completed in the laboratory. Real-world experience with the two settings was assessed by means of questionnaires. Seventeen participants with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing impairments completed the study. An inconsistent pinna cue benefit pattern was observed across the outcome measures. In the localization test, the pinna cue-preserving setting provided a significant mean reduction of 22° in the root mean square (RMS) error in the front-back dimension, with 13 of the 17 participants showing a reduction of at least 15°. No significant mean difference in RMS error between settings was observed in the left-right dimension. No significant differences between settings were observed in the spatial-unmasking test conditions. The questionnaire data indicated a small, but nonsignificant, benefit of the pinna cue-preserving setting in certain real-life situations, which corresponded with a general preference for that setting. No significant real-life localization benefit was observed. The results suggest that preserving pinna cues can offer benefit in some conditions for individual hearing-aid users with mild to moderate hearing loss and is unlikely to harm performances for the rest.