Hearing loss impacts cognitive effort while listening to stories

What is it about?

This study examined how older adults with varying levels of hearing ability listen to and remember spoken stories, using pupil dilation as a measure of effort while people were listening. Participants heard stories at a normal speed, a fast speed, or a fast speed but with pause time added back in. We replicated the finding that pauses within fast speech helped people remember the stories, and critically, reduced the cognitive effort required during listening. However, pauses were less helpful for those with poorer hearing abilities. Importantly, we also found that people with poorer hearing used more effort toward the beginning of the story, but that this effort decreased over time. This suggests that the relationship between hearing loss and cognitive effort may change over the course of listening.

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Hearing loss impacts millions of older adults and makes everyday listening more effortful. The majority of research in the field is conducted using short stimuli such as isolated words and sentences, which may not reflect the complexity of everyday listening. In contrast, this study used extended narratives and time sensitive measures of effort in hopes of better capturing natural communication. The results highlight the importance of examining how listening effort unfolds over time during extended naturalistic listening.

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