Personality captures dissociations of subjective versus objective hearing in noise

Abstract

Acoustic noise is pervasive in human environments, with some individuals being more tolerant to noise than others. We here demonstrate the considerable explanatory potential of personality (focusing on the BIG-5 traits neuroticism and extraversion) on subjective self-report measures and objective psycho-acoustic metrics of noise tolerance. Under statistical control for demographic factors in two samples (total N = 1,103) and in agreement with pre-registered hypotheses, lower neuroticism and higher extraversion independently explained superior self-reported noise resistance, speech-in-noise comprehension, and acceptable background noise. Surprisingly, objective performance in a speech-in-noise task instead was inferior for individuals scoring lower on neuroticism or higher on extraversion. In turn, low-neuroticism/high-extraversion individuals relatively overrated their noise tolerance, expressed as higher subjective than objective noise tolerance. Of benefit to tailored audiological treatments, personality holds explanatory power for inter-individual differences in coping with acoustic noise and helps us understand discrepancies in subjective versus objective noise tolerance.

The bite is worse than the bark: Associations of personality and depressive symptoms with memory discrepancy.

“…Two facets of neuroticism went into opposite directions, such that higher scores on “impulsiveness” were associated with overestimating physical activity, while higher scores on “anxiety” were associated with underestimating physical activity, although these associations did not remain statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons (Kekäläinen, Terracciano, et al, 2020). In a study on noise tolerance (Wöstmann et al, 2021), individuals with low-neuroticism and high-extraversion relatively overrated their noise tolerance (expressed as higher subjective than objective noise tolerance). Nevertheless, the aforementioned studies used self-reports and objective measures that referred to the same (or similar) scale, while in our study, subjective memory ratings such as “excellent” or “poor” may not refer to specific scores on tests of memory performance.…”

Awareness of Performance on a Functional Cognitive Performance-Based Assessment Across the Adult Lifespan

“…In general, people tend to over-estimate their performance in many domains (Huang et al, 2020;Sunderaraman et al, 2020;Wöstmann et al, 2021); however, the degree of overestimation is the largest among the poorest performers. This phenomenon, known as the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" (Kruger and Dunning, 2000), has been demonstrated in laboratory studies as well as real-life tasks with college-aged students (e.g., performance on exams or debates; Miller and Geraci, 2011), and healthy adults in workplace settings (Ehrlinger et al, 2008).…”