Adaptive ECO-SiN (Miles et al., 2024)

Purpose: To investigate potential reasons for the mismatch between laboratory/clinic-based sentence-in-noise performance and real-world listening abilities, we recently developed a corpus of natural, spontaneously spoken speech with three vocal effort levels (Everyday Conversational Sentences in Noise [ECO-SiN]). Here, we examined the feasibility of using the ECO-SiN corpus for adaptive speech-in-noise testing, which might be a desirable format in certain situations (e.g., during a clinical visit).

Method: Ten young, normal-hearing adults, along with 20 older adults with hearing loss participated in the study. Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were obtained using ECO-SiN sentences, which were systematically compared to the SRTs obtained using traditional Bamford-Kowal-Bench–like sentences.

Results: Results demonstrated the properties of the test compared favorably with those of a standard test based on scripted and clearly spoken sentences. Moreover, whereas normal-hearing listeners received a benefit from an increase in vocal effort, the participants with hearing loss showed a disbenefit that increased with increasing hearing loss.

Conclusion: The adaptive version of the ECO-SiN test is feasible for research and clinical testing.

Supplemental Material S1. Summary of the linear mixed effects model contrasts of the SRT data.

Miles, K., Best, V., & Buchholz, J. M. (2024). Feasibility of an adaptive version of the Everyday Conversational Sentences in Noise Test. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67(2), 680–687. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00507