Momentary heart rate is associated with listening intent and interacts with real-world acoustics in young normal-hearing adults

Background and aim: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) can provide insights into the real-world auditory ecology of hearing aid (HA) users. EMA can also be used to evaluate specific HA technology in the daily-life environments of such users. To better understand what factors influence the real-world listening experiences of this population, more detailed models of human auditory ecology and behaviour are needed. Results from laboratory studies suggest that physiological measures may be sensitive to such listening experiences, as changes in physiological signals (e.g., pupil dilation) have been associated with effortful listening. In addition, heart rate (HR) has been shown to be sensitive to acoustic influences (e.g., sound pressure level, SPL, and signal-to-noise ratio, SNR). Here, we hypothesized that the inclusion of both physiological and acoustic data in models predicting EMA scores can provide additional insights into real-world listening outcome. To test this, we collected and analyzed such data for individuals with normal hearing.

Method: Twelve normal-hearing adults completed smartphone-based EMAs during a 2-week period regarding their listening experience. The participants had to indicate their current listening intent when completing the EMAs. The participants received a single HA each that they fastened to their collars. The HAs were used to collect continuous SPL and SNR data in the participants’ daily environments. Wristbands worn by the participants were used to collect continuous HR data.

Results: Linear mixed-effects models with SPL, SNR and HR as fixed effects and participant as random intercept showed that higher SPL was associated with lower (i.e., poorer) EMA ratings. Also, increased HR was associated with poorer EMA scores for items related to audibility and noise ratings. Further, including listening intent in the analyses revealed increased HR in ‘speech communication’ situations to be associated with lower EMA ratings when compared to the situation with no specific listening intent.

Conclusions: Our findings imply that including in-situ HR and acoustic measurements can increase the prediction of real-life listening experiences. Further, they suggest that listening intent has a significant impact on self-reported listening experiences. More specifically, poorer ratings of listening experiences in speech communication were associated to higher HR.