Effects of Increasing the Overall Level or Fitting Hearing Aids on Emotional Responses to Sounds.

Adults with hearing loss demonstrate a reduced range of emotional responses to nonspeech sounds compared to their peers with normal hearing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate two possible strategies for addressing the effects of hearing loss on emotional responses: (a) increasing overall level and (b) hearing aid use (with and without nonlinear frequency compression, NFC). Twenty-three adults (mean age = 65.5 years) with mild-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss and 17 adults (mean age = 56.2 years) with normal hearing participated. All adults provided ratings of valence and arousal without hearing aids in response to nonspeech sounds presented at a moderate and at a high level. Adults with hearing loss also provided ratings while using individually fitted study hearing aids with two settings (NFC-OFF or NFC-ON). Hearing loss and hearing aid use impacted ratings of valence but not arousal. Listeners with hearing loss rated pleasant sounds as less pleasant than their peers, confirming findings in the extant literature. For both groups, increasing the overall level resulted in lower ratings of valence. For listeners with hearing loss, the use of hearing aids (NFC-OFF) also resulted in lower ratings of valence but to a lesser extent than increasing the overall level. Activating NFC resulted in ratings that were similar to ratings without hearing aids (with a moderate presentation level) but did not improve ratings to match those from the listeners with normal hearing. These findings suggest that current interventions do not ameliorate the effects of hearing loss on emotional responses to sound.

Loss of high- or low-frequency audibility can partially explain effects of hearing loss on emotional responses to non-speech sounds.

Hearing loss can disrupt emotional responses to sound. However, the impact of stimulus modality (multisensory versus unisensory) on this disruption, and the underlying mechanisms responsible, are unclear. The purposes of this project were to evaluate the effects of stimulus modality and filtering on emotional responses to non-speech stimuli. It was hypothesized that low- and high-pass filtering would result in less extreme ratings, but only for unisensory stimuli. Twenty-four adults (22- 34 years old; 12 male) with normal hearing participated. Participants made ratings of valence and arousal in response to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant non-speech sounds and/or pictures. Each participant completed ratings of five stimulus modalities: auditory-only, visual-only, auditory-visual, filtered auditory-only, and filtered auditory-visual. Half of the participants rated low-pass filtered stimuli (800 Hz cutoff), and half of the participants rated high-pass filtered stimuli (2000 Hz cutoff). Combining auditory and visual modalities resulted in more extreme (more pleasant and more unpleasant) ratings of valence in response to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. In addition, low- and high-pass filtering of sounds resulted in less extreme ratings of valence (less pleasant and less unpleasant) and arousal (less exciting) in response to both auditory-only and auditory-visual stimuli. These results suggest that changes in audible spectral information are partially responsible for the noted changes in emotional responses to sound that accompany hearing loss. The findings also suggest the effects of hearing loss will generalize to multisensory stimuli if the stimuli include sound, although further work is warranted to confirm this in listeners with hearing loss.

Emotional Responses to Pleasant Sounds Are Related to Social Disconnectedness and Loneliness Independent of Hearing Loss.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between emotional responses to sounds, hearing acuity, and isolation, specifically objective isolation (social disconnectedness) and subjective isolation (loneliness). It was predicted that ratings of valence in response to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli would influence the relationship between hearing loss and isolation. Participants included 83 adults, without depression, who were categorized into three groups (young with normal hearing, older with normal hearing, and adults with mild-to-moderately severe hearing loss). Participants made ratings of valence in response to pleasant and unpleasant nonspeech sounds, presented at a moderate overall level in the laboratory. Participants also completed questionnaires related to social disconnectedness and loneliness. Data were analyzed using multiple regression with questionnaire scores as dependent variables. Independent variables were age, gender, degree of hearing loss, perceived hearing handicap, number of depressive symptoms, mean valence rating in response to unpleasant sounds, and mean valence rating in response to pleasant sounds. Emotional responses to pleasant sounds explained significant variability in scores of both social disconnectedness and loneliness. Depressive symptoms also explained variability in loneliness scores. Hearing loss was not significantly related to social disconnectedness or loneliness, although it was the only variable significantly related to ratings of valence in response to pleasant sounds. Emotional responses to pleasant sounds are related to disconnectedness and loneliness. Although not related to isolation in this study, hearing loss was related to emotional responses. Thus, emotional responses should be considered in future models of isolation and hearing loss.

Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training Workshop: Current Understanding of Hearing Loss and Emotion Perception and Priorities for Future Research.

The question of how hearing loss and hearing rehabilitation affect patients' momentary emotional experiences is one that has received little attention but has considerable potential to affect patients' psychosocial function. This article is a product from the Hearing, Emotion, Amplification, Research, and Training workshop, which was convened to develop a consensus document describing research on emotion perception relevant for hearing research. This article outlines conceptual frameworks for the investigation of emotion in hearing research; available subjective, objective, neurophysiologic, and peripheral physiologic data acquisition research methods; the effects of age and hearing loss on emotion perception; potential rehabilitation strategies; priorities for future research; and implications for clinical audiologic rehabilitation. More broadly, this article aims to increase awareness about emotion perception research in audiology and to stimulate additional research on the topic.