What are you whispering there?
A new computer game has improved the hearing of the elderly
Natalia Pelezneva, Naked Science
American scientists have developed a computer game that trains the ability to perceive speech in noisy rooms. After several days of training, the players were able to make out 25% more words. The average age of the participants in the experiment was 70 years. All of them suffered from various hearing impairments – from minor to severe.
The game is based on the results of a ten-year study of the hearing of laboratory rodents.
According to the developers, their project resembles a children's game "hot and cold". Participants searched for hidden objects on the screen while listening to the voiceover. The volume level and other features of the sound changed depending on how close the player "approached" the hidden object. The voice was accompanied by a relatively loud background noise, which interfered with the perception of vibrations of the main sound.
24 people participated in the testing of the game. They all wore hearing aids for an average of seven years. The effectiveness of the game was studied using a double-blind placebo-controlled study. People were randomly divided into two groups: some spent time playing a specially designed game, the second – for a "placebo game", not related to hearing in any way. Neither the participants nor the experimental scientists knew which group each of the players belonged to. The participants spent 3.5 hours a week on the game, the tests lasted two months.
One of the developers, Jonathon P. Whitton, comments: "The ability to make out just a few more words can affect whether a person is able to maintain a conversation." According to him, such games will improve the quality of life of older people – for example, they will be able to ask their loved ones less often. Also, the training will help middle-aged people with mild hearing impairments who do not require a hearing aid, but make communication difficult.
To start distributing the game, its creators will have to conduct several more stages of testing with a large number of participants. The authors of the game believe that in the future such techniques can be developed taking into account the latest technologies for manufacturing hearing aids.
Article by Whitton et al. Audiomotor Perceptual Training Enhances Speech Intelligence in Background Noise is published in the journal Current Biology.
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