Listening Effort

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 Student Research Committee, MSc in Audiology, Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD in Audiology, Assistant Professor, Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background and Aim: Hearing process for daily activities of normal people is possible without special effort, and yet, in peoples suffering from hearing loss - with or without hearing aids – it mandates effort. The stress and fatigue secondary to this effort and concentration to percieve the speech have negative effects on these individuals’ performance. This challenge affects a big population in the community. This is more prominent in difficult hearing situations and noisy environments. Therefore, it seems to be important to assess listening effort, its physiopathology, and the contributing factors, and when possible, provide ways to manage it and decrease its negative effects on these individuals’ quality of life.
Materials and Methods: To collect data for the current study, we performed a search of the relevant articles using several keywords, including: listening effort, listening fatigue, hearing loss, and hearing aid, in ScienceDirect, GoogleScholar, Scopus, and PubMed databases, published between 1975 and 2018.
Conclusion: According to the results, the listening effort is not well studied yet. But it could affect other cognitive activities and lead to fatigue and increase stressing and consequently negatively impact the quality of life. Therefore, conducting more studies in this domain and considering its importance in future studies is necessary.

Keywords

Main Subjects


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Volume 8, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
April 2019
Pages 226-236
  • Receive Date: 24 May 2018
  • Revise Date: 09 September 2018
  • Accept Date: 14 September 2018
  • First Publish Date: 21 March 2019