Listening Effort in Cochlear Implant Users

Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18-75
SponsorUniversity of Minnesota

About this trial

People with hearing loss experience extra effort when listening, which can lead to severe psychological barriers to communication and social participation. Listening effort can lead to fatigue, mental strain, burnout, medical sick leave, and the need for increased time to recover from regular daily activities. This proposal aims to understand effort changes on a moment-to-moment basis during listening, how long the effort lasts, and how the planning and execution of effort is impacted by the experience of using a cochlear implant.

Eligibility criteria

Qualifiers

Be an adult between the age of 18 to 75 years

Have had normal hearing and speech/language development as a young child

For younger NH listeners: have normal audiometric thresholds below 25 dB HL at frequencies between 250 and 8000 Hz

for cochlear implant listeners: at least 6 months experience with a cochlear implant

Disqualifiers

unable to fix gaze position

eye disease preventing typical changes in pupil dilation

lack of perceptual and productive fluency in English

Trial design

Treatments tested in this trial

  • sentence manipulations

Treatment groups

450 Participants
are divided into 2 treatment groups

Sponsors and collaborators