Dynamic compression, spatial hearing, and cognitive performance

• INTRODUCTION. Spatial hearing outcome of hearing aid fitting might benefit from further knowledge of sound lateralization. Effects from signal processing and cognitive speed on sound lateralization performance have been examined in this study.METHOD. Sound lateralization performance and cognitive performance were measured in adult participants. They assessed direction of noise pulses presented through earphones. Direction was simulated with interaural level differences with and without interaural time differences. Dynamic compression was set to bypass, independent channels, or linked left and right channels. Cognitive performance was assessed by means of letter matching, lexical or phonological tasks. The mean response time and the number of correct responses were recorded for each test condition.RESULTS. For sound lateralization accuracy, presence of interaural time differences improved performance. Independent channels dynamic compression reduced lateralization accuracy. For sound lateralization speed, presence of interaural time differences improved performance by 145 ms. The response time for the lateralization tasks correlated more to the letter matching task than the other cognitive tasks.ADDITIONAL DATA. A preview of data from a follow-up experiment will be presented.

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Handikappvetenskap

Disability Science

MEDICINE

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