When you head to a busy Friday night gathering at Katy Vibes, you probably expect the background noise to make communication a little more challenging than usual. That’s where the cocktail party effect comes in.
What Is the Cocktail Party Effect?
The cocktail party effect is a term to describe the brain’s ability to focus on a specific sound source, like a single voice, in a noisy environment filled with many competing sounds.
For example, if you’re at a crowded party where multiple conversations happen simultaneously, the cocktail party effect is your ability to tune in to the person you’re talking with and follow their voice. The cocktail party effect is sometimes called selective listening.
People without hearing loss can usually employ the cocktail effect successfully, but those with hearing loss may struggle.
How Does Hearing Loss Impact the Cocktail Party Effect?
In one 2021 study, researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the VA Portland Healthcare System found that hearing loss affects the listener’s ability to engage in the cocktail party effect through a phenomenon called binaural pitch fusion.
Researchers placed 11 participants with normal hearing and 10 with hearing loss in a double-walled, sound-attenuated booth and fitted them with headphones. Each participant heard two vowel sounds at the same time, one delivered to each ear, with pitch differences resembling male and female voices. Using a touchscreen, they identified the specific sounds they heard.
The results revealed that patients with hearing loss tended to fuse sounds across both ears. When they fused the vowels, they created a new vowel sound.
When hearing loss impairs your ability to identify vowels individually, speech comprehension takes a hit.
How Can I Improve Speech Comprehension?
There are two effective ways to improve speech comprehension:
- Auditory training exercises. Auditory training exercises are designed to help people with hearing loss improve their ability to recognize and interpret sounds. Common types include speech-in-noise training, auditory memory tasks and sound discrimination activities.
- Hearing aids. Hearing aids collect and amplify speech according to your volume and frequency needs. Many models come with advanced AI that automatically analyzes the noise in your environment and prioritizes speech to improve communication. Combined with auditory training exercises, they can significantly boost your ability to understand speech in environments with competing noise.
For more information about training exercises or hearing aids, contact Davies Institute for Speech & Hearing today to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists.