Beschreibung
One third of people over the age of 65 have a hearing loss that affects everyday conversation, and by the age of80, the proportion has increased to 95%. Without action, hearing loss can limit people's active and healthy agingand increase the risk of poorer mental health - hearing loss management was recently identified as a priority fordementia prevention. The most common treatment is hearing aids, but this technical solution has limited value,not least in noisy environments. This means that we have to create ergonomic listening environments or goodauditory ecology. We know too little about good auditory ecology for older people and how individual factors suchas cognitive ability and motivation interact with auditory ecology. In the proposed project we will use the latestsmartphone technology for automatic (but privacy-protected) recording and individual rating of the real soundenvironments that older people experience in everyday life. Then, we will investigate under controlled laboratoryconditions how these real-life sound environments affect a) speech perception and b) conversations. We take intoaccount the individual's lifestyle and differences in auditory and cognitive ability, motivation and perceived effortand fatigue. The project is innovative, interdisciplinary and international. It combines scientific expertise intechnical audiology, experimental psychology and linguistics and builds on the latest findings in these fields. Theproject will provide new knowledge about the types of noise that are most disruptive to communication for olderpeople. This knowledge can be translated into new guidelines for designing inclusive sound environments and innew counselling strategies. Such measures are important for promoting the active and healthy aging of olderpeople and their participation in society regardless of hearing status. Not least, these measures may preventmental illness among older people.