Ways to help hearing aid users follow several talkers at once
Tests hearing aid settings for locating and understanding voices in adults with hearing loss.
Key facts
- Who runs it
- Boston University Charles River Campus
- Where
- Boston, United StatesSee the site
- Trial code
- Registry title
- Improving Spatial Perception and Speech Understanding in Multitalker Mixtures
- Status
- Recruiting
- People taking part
- 220 people, planned
- Started
- 9 Mar 2022
- Expected to end
- 30 Nov 2026
- Type of study
- Interventional
- Treatments tested
- hearing aid condition
- Record updated
- 28 September 2026
Who can take part
AI summary
From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.
The trial is looking for adults with normal hearing and adults with sensorineural hearing loss. It tests ways to help people follow speech when several people talk at once.
- Age
- Normal-hearing group: 18 to 35 years. Hearing-loss group: 18 to 80 years.
- Sex
- All sexes can join.
- Disease stage
- Hearing-loss group: documented sensorineural hearing loss (hearing loss from the inner ear or hearing nerve). Normal-hearing group: hearing thresholds no higher than 20 dB HL at any frequency from 250 to 8000 Hz.
Main reasons for not taking part
- People who are not native speakers of English cannot join some experiments.
- People who cannot give informed consent or understand the instructions cannot join.
- People whose vision is not normal, even with glasses or lenses, cannot join.
The registry criteria, word for word
Show all 9 criteriaShow less
Who can take part
- 18 to 35 years of age
- Audiometric thresholds that do not exceed 20 dB HL at any frequency from 250 to 8000 Hz
- Able to provide informed consent and understand experimental instructions
- Normal or corrected-to-normal vision
- 18 to 80 years of age
- Documented sensorineural hearing loss
- Able to provide informed consent and understand experimental instructions
- Normal or corrected-to-normal vision
Who cannot take part
- Non-native speakers of English
Check if you might fit
Answer for yourself. This is not a decision: only the study team can say whether you can take part.
- Are you between 18 and 80 years old?
Where in United States
- Boston UniversityBoston, United StatesContact: Virginia BestTaking people
About the trial
What the trial wants to find out
The purpose of this study is to investigate several approaches for improving spatial perception and speech intelligibility in multitalker listening situations for hearing-aid users. The hypotheses are that spatial perception and speech intelligibility will be improved by (1) increased high-frequency audibility, (2) speech envelope enhancement, and/or (3) appropriate sound image externalization.
The group in the trial
- Experimental conditionOther group
Participants will be presented with sound stimuli under a number of experimental conditions that simulate different hearing-aid conditions.
Treatment: hearing aid condition
Questions to ask the study team
- How often do I need to come in, and for how long each time?
- Are travel costs paid?
- Can I keep my own doctor?
- What happens if I want to stop?
Contact the study team: see the registry record → Contacts and Locations
Print a page for my doctorData and sources
- Registry record
- Listed on ClinicalTrials.gov.
- Official title
- Improving Spatial Perception and Speech Understanding in Multitalker Mixtures
- Plain-language title
- Ways to help hearing aid users follow several talkers at onceGenerated from the registry record. The registry title is the official one.
- AI summary
- From the trial's eligibility criteria. Read by machine on 14 November 2026.
- Fit questions
- Built from NCT05260307, who can take part
- Record updated
- 28 September 2026