Hearing loss can impair affect perception in ways hearing aids may not fully restore

Evidence

The current study investigates whether hearing aids restore affect perception, and how hearing loss in older adults influences affect perception. In particular, this study focuses on the question to what extent hearing aid use and hearing loss influence listeners’ sensitivity to the acoustic parameters cueing affect. To that end, older (bilateral) hearing aid users are tested while wearing their hearing aid (aided condition) and without it (unaided condition). The relation between the acoustic parameters and the affect ratings are then evaluated for the two listening conditions. Moreover, the performance in the aided condition is compared to a control group of age-matched normal-hearing listeners. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1356

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does hearing aid amplification actually restore affective prosody perception, or does signal processing trade it away?