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Hear-Eco: Innovative Hearing Aid Research – Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures 

Dorothea Wendt

Principal Scientist

Eriksholm Research Centre

Hamish Innes-Brown

Senior Research Manager

Eriksholm Research Centre

HearEco: Innovative Hearing Aid Research – Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures 

Introduction

In today’s aging European population, hearing impairment is an increasing concern for public health and social participation, affecting one in three older adults. The Marie-Curie ITN project “Innovative Hearing Aid Research – Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures” HEAR-ECO project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program to address this concern by developing and combining new tools and outcome measures for realistic communication and translating these tools into innovative developments and evaluations of new technology for those with hearing loss. HEAR-ECO aim to train a new generation of hearing scientists that are able to integrate conventional Audiology with Motivational and Social psychology (motivation to listen, cognition), Psychophysiology, and hearing-aid technology.

Aims

The major aim of HEAR-ECO was to train six PhD candidates to become entrepreneurial experts in an emerging field, combining audiological, motivational and social psychological and psychophysiological perspectives on hearing-aid technology.

The project furthermore aimed to develop ecologically valid listening tests by taking realistic acoustic conditions into consideration as well as social consequences of failure. The overall scope was to better understand the effects of task demands, motivation and fatigue on listening effort in people with hearing difficulties and to evaluate the effect of hearing-aid characteristics in real-world conditions.

Methodology

HEAR-ECO studied listening effort under ecological listening conditions taking into account listener motivation and fatigue. Furthermore, hearing-aid benefits were investigated using (ambulatory) physiological measures such as pupil dilation response (eyes), pre-ejection period (PEP; heart) and electroencephalogram (EEG; brain), and in addition subjective ratings of perceived effort were collected.

Results

The project was finalized with a workshop in 2022 summarizing the findings of the individual projects. Overall, the HEAR-ECO results and discussion during the final workshop illustrated that the acquisition of physiological measures associated with listening effort in ecological listening conditions is of great importance and of interest to many researchers.

Labs in various disciplines currently contribute to the development and validation of sensitive parameters, analysis methods and relevant constructs. To summarize, the findings of the project were able to shed some lights on the concept of listening effort, the clinical relevance of current methods, the quest for ecologically valid test conditions, and the value of various physiological indices.

Check out HEAR-ECO page here.

HEARECO

Publications

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Seifi, Ala. T., Graversen, C., Whitmer, W. M., Hadley, L. V., Lunner, T. (2021). Motivation modifies effort when the task demands it: EEG evidence of an interaction between reward and demand in a speech-in-noise task.
Pielage, H., Plain, B. J., Saunders, G. H., Versfeld, N. J., Lunner, T., Kramer, S. E., Zekveld, A. A. (2021). Effects of copresence on speech perception in persons with a hearing impairment. Ear and Hearing, 2021.
Pielage, H., Zekveld, A. A., Saunders, G. H., Versfeld, N. J., Lunner, T., Kramer, S. E. (2021). The Presence of Another Individual Influences Listening Effort, But Not Performance. Ear and Hearing, 2021
Książek, P., Zekveld, A. A., Fiedler, L., Kramer, S.E., Wendt, D. (2021). Components of pupil dilation responses reveal the interplay between signal-to-noise ratio and recall during and auditory working memory task.
Kramer, S. E., Bhuiyan, T., Bramsløw, L., Fiedler, L., Graversen, C., Hadley, L. V., Innes-Brown, H., Naylor, G., Richter, M., Saunders, G. H., Versfeld, N. J., Wendt, D., Whitmer, W. M.,  Zekveld, A. A. (2017). Innovative Hearing Aid Research on Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures: The HEAR-ECO Project.
Menase, D. A., Richter, M. M., Wendt, D., Fiedler, L., & Naylor, G. (2022). Task-Induced mental fatigue and motivation influence listening effort as measured by the pupil dilation in a Speech-in-Noise task. medRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268734
Aguirre, S., Bramsløw, L., Lunner, T., Whitmer, W. (2019). Spatial Cue Distortions Within A Virtualized Sound Field Caused By An Additional Listener [Poster]. ICA 2019, Aachen. Germany, September 9-13 2019
Seifi, T., Graversen, C., Wendt, D., Aličković, E., Whitmer, W. M., & Lunner, T. (2020). An exploratory Study of EEG Alpha Oscillation and Pupil Dilation in Hearing-Aid Users During Effortful listening to Continuous Speech. PloS One, 15(7), e0235782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235782
Plain, B., Richter, M. M., Zekveld, A. A., Lunner, T., Bhuiyan, T. A., & Kramer, S. E. (2020). Investigating the influences of task demand and reward on cardiac Pre-Ejection Period reactivity during a Speech-in-Noise task. Ear And Hearing, 42(3), 718–731. https://doi.org/10.1097/aud.0000000000000971
Plain, B., Pielage, H., Richter, M., Bhuiyan, T. A., Lunner, T., Kramer, S. E., & Zekveld, A. A. (2021). Social observation increases the cardiovascular response of hearing-impaired listeners during a speech reception task. Hearing Research, 410, 108334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2021.108334
Książek, P., Zekveld, A. A., Wendt, D., Fiedler, L., Lunner, T., & Kramer, S. E. (2021). Effect of Speech-to-Noise ratio and luminance on a range of current and potential pupil response measures to assess listening effort. Trends in Hearing, 25, 233121652110093. https://doi.org/10.1177/23312165211009351
Fiedler, L., Seifi, T., Graversen, C., Aličković, E., Lunner, T., & Wendt, D. (2021). Hearing aid noise reduction lowers the sustained listening effort during continuous speech in Noise—A combined pupillometry and EEG study. Ear And Hearing, 42(6), 1590–1601. https://doi.org/10.1097/aud.0000000000001050

Team

Dorothea Wendt

Principal Scientist

Eriksholm Research Centre

Hamish Innes-Brown

Senior Research Manager

Eriksholm Research Centre

Lars Bramsløw

Principal Scientist

Eriksholm Research Centre

Lorenz Fiedler

Senior Scientist

Eriksholm Research Centre

Sergio Luiz Aguirre

PhD Student

University of Nottingham

Patrycja Książek

PhD Student

VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam

Bethany Plain

PhD Student

VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam

Tirdad Seifi Ala

PhD Student

University of Nottingham

Hidde Pielage

PhD Student

VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam

Defne Alfandari

PhD Student

University of Nottingham

Tanveer Bhuiyan

Senior DSP Engineer

Oticon A/S

Michael Richter

Reader in Motivation Psychology

Liverpool John Moores University

Bill Whitmer

Senior Investigator

University of Nottingham – Scottish Section

Gaby Saunders

Professor

The University of Manchester

Lauren V Hadley

Senior Research Fellow

University of Nottingham – Scottish Section

Graham Naylor

Professor & Director

University of Nottingham – Scottish Section

Adriana A. Zekveld

Assistant Professor

Amsterdam UMC location VU medical center

Sophia Kramer

Professor

Amsterdam UMC location VU University medical center

View all

Partners

  • Eriksholm Research Centre, Denmark

  • VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam

  • University of Nottingham – Scottish section

  • Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool

View all

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