Functional Hearing Ability within the Context of Driving

驾驶环境中的功能性听力

• 批准号: 6780674
• 负责人: Carryl L Baldwin
• 金额: $ 6.19万
• 依托单位: OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-06-01 至 2006-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6780674
• 关键词: age difference; attention; auditory stimulus; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; cognition; computer simulation; functional ability; hearing aids; hearing tests; human subject; method development; noise pollution; performance; presbycusis; psychomotor function; short term memory; sound perception; speech recognition; transportation /recreation safety

Age-related changes in hearing and cognition pose considerable challenges to older adults in real world settings. Traditional methods of assessing audiometric functioning fail to consider the attentional processing requirements inherent in everyday listening situations. Concurrently, cognitive aging research has often neglected to adequately measure and account for hearing abilities. Hearing impairment, common among older populations, necessitates the expenditure of differentially greater attentional resources for signal extraction thereby compromising performance on concurrent cognitive tasks. New in-vehicle technologies utilizing auditory guidance instructions to assist drivers with navigating through complex and unfamiliar environments have the potential to decrease the attentional demands of difficult ddving situations and thus increase the safety and mobility of older ddvers. However, failure to address the interacting affects of declining hearing abilities and attentional processing capabilities of older adults threatens the effective implementation of these new technologies. Standard methods of assessing hearing impairment (i.e., clinical audiometry) neglect the working memory demands involved in everyday auditory processing. At the same time, conventional assessments of cognitive processing often use auditory tasks but frequently do not assess hearing ability adequately. The major goal of the proposed research is to develop and validate a functional hearing assessment methodology with young, young-old and old adults to examine the impact of hearing ability on speech processing and attentional workload during multi-task performance similar to that present in many everyday situations. To achieve this goal, three experiments of multi-task performance are proposed. A speech-processing task will be combined with a simulated driving task. Experiment 1 will facilitate the establishment of a method of assessing functional hearing ability (FHA) and Experiment 2 will examine the impact of realistic environmental noise on FHA. Auditory stimuli will first be presented within a range of presentation levels including standard (60dB), attenuated and amplified presentation levels. By equating functional hearing level between the age groups, a comparison of the attentional requirements of the speech-processing task independent of hearing ability can be achieved. Results of the investigation will be utilized to develop a predictive model of the attentional requirements of auditory processing in real world multi-task situations such as driving. Experiment 3 will incorporate the results of the FHA methodology established in Experiments 1 and 2 in a realistic driving task involving utilizing auditory navigational guidance instructions to complete a wayfinding task.

在现实世界中，与年龄相关的听力和认知变化对老年人构成了巨大挑战。评估听力功能的传统方法无法考虑日常聆听情况固有的注意力处理要求。同时，认知衰老的研究经常被忽略，无法充分衡量和说明听力能力。听力障碍（在较老的人群中常见）需要支出不同的注意力资源来提取信号提取，从而损害了并发认知任务的表现。使用听觉指导说明的新的车载技术协助驾驶员通过复杂而陌生的环境导航有可能减少困难的DDING情况的注意力需求 从而提高较老的DDVERS的安全性和迁移率。但是，未能解决听力能力下降和老年人注意力处理能力的相互作用影响，威胁到这些新技术的有效实施。评估听力障碍的标准方法（即临床观察法）忽略了日常听觉处理所涉及的工作记忆需求。同时，对认知处理的常规评估经常使用听觉任务，但经常无法充分评估听力能力。拟议研究的主要目标是与年轻，年轻和老年人开发和验证一种功能性听力评估方法，以检查听力能力对多任务处理过程中类似于许多日常情况类似的多任务处理过程中听力处理和注意力工作量的影响。为了实现这一目标，提出了三个多任务性能的实验。语音处理任务将与模拟驾驶任务结合使用。实验1将有助于建立一种评估功能听力能力（FHA）的方法，实验2将检查现实的环境噪声对FHA的影响。听觉刺激将首先在包括标准（60dB），减弱和放大的表现水平在内的一系列呈现范围内呈现。通过将年龄段之间的功能听力水平等同，可以比较语音处理任务的注意力独立于听力能力。调查的结果将用于开发一个预测模型，以实现现实世界中多任务处理（例如驾驶）的注意力需求。实验3将结合实验1和2中在实验1和2中建立的FHA方法的结果中 完成一项寻路任务。