TECHNICAL AUDIOLOGY: Rollover effects at above-conversational speech levels: Clinical assessment and hearing-aid Fitting

It is well known that speech intelligibility can decrease as the overall sound intensity increases – an effect
known as rollover. Recently, a link between rollover and cochlear synaptopathy has been suggested. In
other words, rollover may be a sign of retro-cochlear damage as caused by deafferentiation of the auditory
nerve, for example. Currently, there is limited knowledge about the functional consequences of rollover.
Furthermore, there is a lack of research into ways of addressing them with hearing devices. The purpose of
this PhD project is to develop new methods for the clinical assessment and compensation of rollover effects
in individual listeners. To that end, studies will be conducted with adult participants that can shed light on
the underlying mechanisms and that can lead to new solutions for hearing rehabilitation.