Sound Perception Study of Hearing-impaired People With Hearing Aids

NCT ID: NCT06691087

Last Updated: 2025-03-03

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 75 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2025-03-31
• Study Completion Date: 2028-11-30

Brief Summary

The aim of the ETERNEL project will be to study the influence of the perception of a single sound timbre on the understanding of a complex sound scene in hearing-impaired people with hearing aids. This will be done by quantifying the inability to manage a complex sound scene as a function of the timbre of the sounds making it up. The more a sound interferes with understanding the complex sound scene, the more salient that sound is considered to be. In this way, the investigators can determine which timbre dimensions make sounds particularly salient for the hearing impaired.

Conditions

Auditory Perception

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Normal Hearing participants

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Influence of the parameters of the sound timbre on the perception of a sound

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The experiment consists of evaluating the sound level of n complex stimuli, then equalising them in loudness, in order to measure a loudness curve in function of timbre descriptors.

The stimuli will then be listened to again in pairs. The task is there to compare the stimuli using a VAS to indicate how different the two sounds are.

Complex sound scene comprehension test

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The experiment consists in identifying the parameters of the sound timbre that most disturb the understanding of complex sound scenes, by asking the participants to identify sounds whose timbre has been modified.

Hearing-impaired with hearing aids

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Influence of the parameters of the sound timbre on the perception of a sound

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The experiment consists of evaluating the sound level of n complex stimuli, then equalising them in loudness, in order to measure a loudness curve in function of timbre descriptors.

The stimuli will then be listened to again in pairs. The task is there to compare the stimuli using a VAS to indicate how different the two sounds are.

Complex sound scene comprehension test

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The experiment consists in identifying the parameters of the sound timbre that most disturb the understanding of complex sound scenes, by asking the participants to identify sounds whose timbre has been modified.

Complex sound scene comprehension test with hearing aids

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The experiment will be identical to intervention 2. This time, the modification of the stimulus timbres will focus on the most problematic dimensional modifications, i.e. those where the difference between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners is greatest. We will then modify the signal processing parameters of the hearing aid simulator (for example, the size of the averaging window or the gain balance of the filters), to observe their impact on the salience of certain stimuli.

Interventions

Influence of the parameters of the sound timbre on the perception of a sound

The experiment consists of evaluating the sound level of n complex stimuli, then equalising them in loudness, in order to measure a loudness curve in function of timbre descriptors.

The stimuli will then be listened to again in pairs. The task is there to compare the stimuli using a VAS to indicate how different the two sounds are.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Complex sound scene comprehension test

The experiment consists in identifying the parameters of the sound timbre that most disturb the understanding of complex sound scenes, by asking the participants to identify sounds whose timbre has been modified.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Complex sound scene comprehension test with hearing aids

The experiment will be identical to intervention 2. This time, the modification of the stimulus timbres will focus on the most problematic dimensional modifications, i.e. those where the difference between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners is greatest. We will then modify the signal processing parameters of the hearing aid simulator (for example, the size of the averaging window or the gain balance of the filters), to observe their impact on the salience of certain stimuli.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

For all participants:

• Age between 60 and 75
• Native French speaker
• Have given their consent to take part in the study.
• Declare that they have an active social life or hobbies that stimulate their cognitive abilities
• Have a MOCA score above 26
• No tympano-ossicular dysfunction.
• Voice in noise audiometry results showing normal results.

For participants with impaired hearing :

• Pure tone audiometry showing audiograms of type N3 or N4 and symmetrical between the two ears.
• Report having experienced problems with abnormally prominent sound.

For participants with normal hearing:

• Pure tone audiometry showing audiograms with losses of less than 30 dBHl.

Exclusion Criteria

• Be under guardianship or curatorship,
• Be deprived of liberty by judicial or administrative decision, or be under legal protection.
• Bear the consequences of an ear infection and/or have a history of an ENT disease that permanently affects hearing or balance (vestibular schwannoma, Ménière's disease, sudden or fluctuating deafness, congenital hypoacusis).

• Minimum Eligible Age: 60 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 75 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Institut de l'Audition

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Institut Pasteur

INDUSTRY

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Paul Avan

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

CERIAH

Central Contacts

Céline Quinsac

Role: CONTACT

celine.quinsac@pasteur.fr

0176535029 ext. +33

Armand Schwarz

Role: CONTACT

armand.schwarz@pasteur.fr

Other Identifiers

2024-A01112-45

Identifier Type: OTHER

Identifier Source: secondary_id

2024-040

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id