There are people who find it extremely difficult to distinguish the voices of individual people when they are in a very crowded room. While the problem could be due to hearing loss, on the other hand it seems that our brain is causing this sense of confusion. The phenomenon is also known as the cocktail party effect. Here’s what it is. Cocktail party effect: Difficult to hear in a crowded room
According to new research, struggling to distinguish sounds when in a crowded room could be due to a processing problem in which both ears blend different sounds together. This condition is known as binaural tone fusion. The sense of confusion, therefore, would depend on the difficulty in merging the binaural tone which is abnormally large in people with hearing problems, even mild ones. In practice, if a person has hearing problems, the fusion of the sounds coming from the two ears leads to an incomprehensible association. “This differs from what people experience during a normal hearing experience in what is known as the ‘cocktail party effect. People with normal hearing can separate and understand multiple voices,I study
During the research, the scientists recruited 11 participants with normal hearing and 10 with hearing loss. The volunteers were then fitted with headphones and welcomed in a double-walled soundproof booth at OHSU’s Hatfield Research Center. At that time, two different vowel sounds were played simultaneously for each ear. Participants were then asked to respond on a touchscreen to describe their level of understanding of specific vowel sounds. The results showed that only people with hearing loss experienced abnormal language fusion. When several vowel sounds were merged, participants heard a completely new vowel sound. For example, the vowel “ah” (as in “hot”) pronounced by a female would merge with the vowel “ee” (as in “heed”) pronounced by a male speaker would be perceived as “eh” (as in ” head “). “Abnormal binaural fusion may provide a new explanation for the difficulty many hearing impaired people have in understanding different sounds when in a crowded room,” the study authors conclude. “This suggests more targeted rehabilitation strategies to improve speech perception in noise.” “Abnormal binaural fusion may provide a new explanation for the difficulty many hearing impaired people have in understanding different sounds when in a crowded room,” the study authors conclude. “This suggests more targeted rehabilitation strategies to improve speech perception in noise.” “Abnormal binaural fusion may provide a new explanation for the difficulty many hearing impaired people have in understanding different sounds when in a crowded room,” the study authors conclude. “This suggests more targeted rehabilitation strategies to improve speech perception in noise.”
La ricerca, e stata condotta dai ricercatori dell’Oregon Health & Science University e del VA Portland Health Care System ed e stata pubblicata sul Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology.Fonti scientifiche
Lina A.J Reiss, Michelle R Molis. An Alternative Explanation for Difficulties with Speech in Background Talkers: Abnormal Fusion of Vowels Across Fundamental Frequency and Ears. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 2021; DOI: 10.1007/s10162-021-00790-7
