Research (R)
ShengJie A. Bock, BA (she/her/hers)
University of Iowa, Iowa
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Erik Jorgensen, AuD PhD
UW Madison
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Yu-Hsiang Wu, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Michelle Arnold, AuD, PhD
University of South Florida, Florida
Disclosure(s): NIA: Research Grant (includes principal investigator, collaborator or consultant and pending grants as well as grants already received) (Ongoing); NIDCD: Research Grant (includes principal investigator, collaborator or consultant and pending grants as well as grants already received) (Ongoing); University of South Florida: Employment (Ongoing), Grant/Research Support (Ongoing)
Jingjing Xu, PhD
Research Scientist
Starkey
Eden Prairie, Minnesota
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Octav Chipara
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Rationale
The purpose of this study is to characterize the relationship between demographic factors and auditory lifestyles of younger adults with normal hearing. Auditory lifestyle refers to the types of soundscapes listeners encounter, which includes sound levels, listening activities, background noise, number of different interlocutors, etc. Auditory lifestyle may impact audiologic intervention approaches and benefit. For example, listeners with more active auditory lifestyles may have different hearing aid preferences and outcome than listeners with less active auditory lifestyles. Although past work has characterized the auditory lifestyles of hearing aid users, the participants in those studies were homogeneous, comprised mainly of elderly, white, affluent participants from rural areas. The findings from these studies do not represent the whole population, particularly those with diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds. There is a need to investigate and identify specific demographic factors (e.g. age, race, cultural identity, and socioeconomic status) that may influence an individual's auditory lifestyle. In this study, we investigated whether listeners who identify as white show differences in auditory lifestyle from listeners who do not identify as white. Results from this study will indicate the degree to which sample diversity influences research results.
Methods
Young normal hearing adults (YNH) (n= 33 participants, between age 15-35) were invited for research participation. [white =15; non-white=18]. Participants were invited for two laboratory data collection visits. The first visit included consent, hearing screening, and device set-up. The participants were then asked to wear non-amplifying hearing aids for 7-10 days before returning for their second lab visit. During this time, the hearing aids recorded data about their soundscape every 10 minutes. Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) were surveys set to be delivered on a smartphone approximately every hour during all waking hours. At the second visit, participants completed questionnaires. To investigate potential differences between the groups, we compared hearing aid input sound levels, the Auditory Lifestyle and Demand questionnaire, Social Network Index, and listening activity reported on EMA were analyzed using either mixed effects regression models (for repeated measures) or ANOVA.
Results
Listeners who identified as white experienced, on average 1.5 dB higher sound levels than listeners who identified as non-white, but this difference was not significant (t(25.846)=-0.831, p=0.414). Groups did not differ on background noise level, based on EMA. Groups did not differ on auditory lifestyle based on the Auditory Lifestyle and Demand Questionnaire. Listeners who identified as white reported significantly larger total social network sizes than listeners who identified as non-white (F(1)=4.482, p=0.043). Groups did not differ on time spent in live conversation, live listening, media listening, or environmental listening, but listeners who identified as non-white spent significantly more time in conversation on a device than listeners who identified as white (z=2.064, p=0.039).
Discussion
Our results suggest that auditory lifestyle does not generally differ between two groups. Notable exceptions are differences in social network size and conversation on an electronic device. More research should be conducted to determine how demographics and recruitment practices might bias research findings on auditory lifestyle.