Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Date of Graduation
5-9-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Audiology (AuD)
Department
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Advisor(s)
Ayasakanta Rout
Yingjiu Nie
Melissa Garber
Abstract
Listening in adverse conditions such as in the presence of background noise or at a low intensity level can require additional listening effort. While the relationship between signal to noise ratio and listening effort has been reported previously, there is a gap in the literature on the effect of listening at different levels on listening effort. In the present study, five young, normal-hearing listeners were tested for speech understanding at two presentation levels (35 dB and 65 dB) under three signal to noise ratio conditions (0, -3, and -6 dB). Peak pupil dilation was measured using a Tobii T60 XL eye tracker while the participants responded to the speech understanding task. A 10-point subjective rating scale was also administered after each test condition. While the results indicated a trend of increased pupil dilation at 65 dB (louder presentation level), there were no statistical significant differences due to the small sample size and large variance in the data. The subjective rating scale also indicated higher effortfulness rating for the louder listening level. The results of this preliminary data laid the groundwork for future investigation of the relationship between a wide range of presentation levels and listening effort.
Recommended Citation
Steele, Noelle Elizabeth, "The effect of listening level on listening effort: A pupillometry study" (2024). Dissertations, 2020-current. 145.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/diss202029/145
