Dichotic Word Recognition in Young Adults with Simulated Hearing Loss

The purpose of the present study was to examine dichotic speech recognition in young adults with simulated hearing loss to more appropriately compare performance to older adults. Twelve young adults with normal hearing participated. Dichotic word recognition (DWR) performance was measured under unprocessed and processed conditions. In order to simulate hearing loss, the stimuli were filtered using the Moore and Glasberg (1993) hearing loss model and a reference audiogram (re: Roup et al., 2006). For each condition, DWR was measured using free-recall, directed-right and directed-left response paradigms. Results indicated two main findings: (1) a significant reduction in overall recognition performance from the unprocessed to processed condition, and (2) small and consistent changes in the magnitude of the ear advantage were observed between response paradigms. Results from the processed condition were then compared to DWR in noise (Moller, 2007) and older adult DWR (Roup et al., 2006). Processed DWR performance was better than DWR in noise and the REAs were similar. Processed DWR performance was also better than DWR in older adults