Speech Perception and High Cognitive Demand

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Speech Intelligibility, Aging

In brief

With advancing age, adults experience increasing speech understanding difficulties in challenging situations. Currently, speech-in-noise difficulties are rehabilitated by providing hearing aids. For older normal-hearing adults, however, hearing devices do not provide much benefit since these adults do not have decreased hearing sensitivity. The goal of the "Speech Perception and High Cognitive Demand" project is to evaluate the benefit of a new auditory-cognitive training paradigm. In the present study neural (as measured by pupillometry and magnetoencephalography) and behavioral changes of speech-in-noise perception from pretest to posttest will be examined in older adults (age 65 - 85 years) assigned to one of three training groups: 1) Active Control Group: sessions of watching informational videos, 2) Auditory Training Group: sessions of auditory training listening to one of two speakers in everyday scenarios (e.g., driving directions) and needing to recall what one speaker said in the previous sentence, and 3) Auditory-cognitive training group: identical to the auditory training group, except participants will be asked to remember information from two previous sentences. Changes in speech-in-noise perception will be examined for the three groups of older adults and gains will be compared to a control group of young, normal hearing adults (18-30 years) that is not part of the clinical trial and will not undergo any training.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT04997577

Run by

University of Maryland, College Park

People needed

100

Starts

2021-09-27

Expected to finish

2027-12-31

Last updated by the study team

2025-04-08

Who can join

Age: 65 and older, up to 85. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Aged between 65 - 85 years
• Normal hearing (pure tone thresholds ≤ 25 dB HL from 250 - 8000 Hz)
• Self-reported normal or corrected-to-normal vision
• Dominant language: American English
• Education: a high school diploma or higher education level

You may not qualify if…

• Middle-ear or inner-ear pathology
• Non-native speaker of English
• Inability to complete all training sessions within a pre-specified time window (e.g., due to unexpected schedule restrictions)
• Learning disorders
• Metal in body that induces a data artifact for MEG recording (e.g., excessive metal dental work) or that poses a safety issue in the MRI portion (e.g., pacemakers, neural implants, metal plates or joints, shrapnel, and surgical staples)
• Claustrophobia or any condition that would be exacerbated by the scanning environment's lighting, sounds, etc. (e.g., migraines)
• A non-removable hairstyle or hair accessory that would prevent the participant from fitting comfortably in the MEG or MRI head coil
• Currently under a medical provider's care for a closed head injury
• Currently taking psychoactive stimulant (e.g., amphetamines), depressant (e.g., benzodiazepines), mood stabilizing (e.g., lithium), anti-psychotic, or anti-seizure medications or drugs of abuse
• Currently pregnant (only for MRI)

Where it is running

• Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences — College Park, Maryland, United States (enrolling)
• Maryland Neuroimaging Center — College Park, Maryland, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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