Listening Effort in Cochlear Implant Users

People with hearing loss experience extra effort when listening, which can lead to severe psychological barriers to communication and social participation. Listening effort can lead to fatigue, mental strain, burnout, medical sick leave, and the need for increased time to recover from regular daily activities. This proposal aims to understand effort changes on a moment-to-moment basis during listening, how long the effort lasts, and how the planning and execution of effort is impacted by the experience of using a cochlear implant.

Inclusion Criteria: To be eligible for this study, a participant must: * Be an adult between the age of 18 to 75 years * Have had normal hearing and speech/language development as a young child * For younger NH listeners: have normal audiometric thresholds below 25 dB HL at frequencies between 250 and 8000 Hz * for cochlear implant listeners: at least 6 months experience with a cochlear implant * For older (55+ years) age-matched listeners with no cochlear implant: normal audiometric thresholds below 25 dB HL at frequencies between 250 and 2000 Hz and thresholds below 35 dB HL (hearing level) between 4000 and 8000 Hz * For cochlear implant listeners: be able to recognize spoken words in English at a rate of at least 50% * Be a competent speaker of north American English * Lack language-learning or other cognitive disabilities * Lack of auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder Exclusion Criteria: * unable to fix gaze position * eye disease preventing typical changes in pupil dilation * lack of perceptual and productive fluency in English