Objective extraction of dynamical listening effort profiles

In complex listening environments, people with hearing loss have an increased listening effort to achieve a similar speech understanding level as normal hearing people. However, a standardized method to estimate this listening effort does not exist. Recently, we have shown a possible way to determine listening effort objectively. This method is based on the phase distribution of the ongoing oscillatory EEG activity. The aim of the current study was to assess, whether such objective methods can also be used to extract dynamical listening effort profiles in persons with a moderate hearing loss. Hearing aids were fitted using a directional microphone (DM) configuration, a new binaurally coupled hearing aid technique (BHA) and a fitting using omnidirectional microphones (ODM). Furthermore, a temporal resolution of the measure was obtained to unveil underlying processes such as fatigue effects or a cessation to spend attentional effort. The results indicate that time-varying listening effort profiles related to effects like fatigue or a cessation to solve the auditory task can be detected by the proposed objective measures.