Contribution
Influence of Hearing Loss and Hearing Aid Directionality on Search Behavior in Audio-Visual Multi-Talker Environments
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Communicating in multi-talker environments can be challenging for hearing-impaired (HI) individuals. Head and eye movements can assist with navigating such environments. Normal-hearing (NH) and HI individuals may differ in their movement strategies, and hearing aid (HA) processing may influence their strategies. This study investigated the search strategies of 20 NH and 22 HI participants as they identified a target narrative among competing narratives in audio-visual scenes of different complexity. The scenes were rendered with a 64-channel loudspeaker array and virtual-reality glasses. The participants were tested unaided and aided with HAs fitted to NAL-NL2 target gains. Omnidirectional and directional microphone settings were tested. Across all conditions, the HI group showed more initial misorientations compared to the NH group. Also, the HI group showed more variability in their gaze movements relative to their head movements. When identifying the target narrative, the HI participants heads were more off-target than the NH participants heads, whereas, in terms of gaze direction, no group difference was found. No clear effects of HA directionality settings were observed. Overall, these findings show the significant impact of hearing loss on head and eye movement strategies in multi-talker environments.