Development and Application of an Annotation Procedure to Assess the Impact of Hearing Aid Amplification on Interpersonal Communication Behavior

Abstract

Hearing impairment is associated with a decrease in speech intelligibility and health-related quality of life, such as social isolation and participation restriction. However, little is known about the extent to which hearing impairment and hearing aid fittings change behavior in acute communication situations as well as interrelated behavior patterns. Based on a pilot study, in which the basis for annotating communication behavior was laid, group discussions in noise were initiated with 10 participants using three different hearing-aid brands. The proposed offline annotation scheme revealed that different hearing aids were associated with changes in behavior patterns. These behavioral changes were congruent with speech recognition threshold results and also with subjective assessments. Some of the results were interpreted in terms of participation restriction and activity limitation following the framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. In addition to the offline annotation scheme, a procedure for instantaneous coding of eight behavior patterns was iteratively developed and used for the quick examination of lab studies with good to excellent interrater reliability values.

Transformation of HCI co-research with older adults - researchers’ positionality in the COVID-19 pandemic times

“…Different projects, different positionalities. Both projects have been coresearch with older people the aim of designing socio-digital interventions to improve the quality of life of older people [35]. Project A is about joint research and co-design of measures that address the easy adoption of digital everyday tools through socio-technical measures to promote digital literacy.…”

“…In this project, we expand the attention and action radius from digital to social innovations. The aim of the project is to explore the everyday life circumstances of older adults with care needs living at home and co-create community-based interventions which enhance the persons' quality of life beyond professional care services [35].…”

Ecological Momentary Assessment to Obtain Signal Processing Technology Preference in Cochlear Implant Users

“…Questionnaires can assess the therapeutic effect through preoperative and postoperative comparison for a CI treatment or processor upgrade and can provide suitably complex listening environments for the evaluation of sound processor programs, which could include algorithms such as ForwardFocus [ 21 ]. However, data from questionnaires rely on retrospective recall of events and experiences and therefore reflect cumulative effects, are possibly biased by the interlocked effects of long-term memory and inference [ 22 ], and can therefore be inaccurate. Questionnaires also do not capture the variation of the sound environment across the day, a particular disadvantage in assessing algorithms designed for particular acoustic situations.…”