Willingness to trade hearing devices requires at least a 6 dB advantage

Evidence

When the initial SNR was ‑6 dB, the proportion of times that participants, on average, were willing to swap exceeded chance only when the ΔSNR was greater than 4 dB (i.e., 70 % at 6 dB SNR, and 87 % at 8 dB SNR). When the initial SNR was + 6 dB, willingness to swap just exceeded chance (56 % willing to swap) at a ΔSNR of 8 dB. The JMD based on the swap paradigm is therefore dependent on the difficulty of the situation (i.e., the reference SNR), but appears to be at least 6 dB SNR. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5684

Categorization

• XREF: The difficulty-dependence echoes the finding that near-threshold contexts magnify the value of improvements, paralleling Weber-law sensitivity windows.