Development of Functional Spatial Hearing in Reverberation

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The goal of the clinical trial study (Phase 0) is to map out the developmental trajectory of functional spatial hearing abilities in reverberant environments for children with normal hearing between the ages of 6 and 18 years, and to understand the inter-relationships between the three perceptual abilities: auditory object size formation, spatial acuity, and spatial unmasking during typical development. Children are asked to perform psychoacoustic tasks when the auditory stimuli are processed to present in virtual acoustic environments (1) with no reverberation and (2) with one of the two levels of reverberation that emulate everyday indoor environments. The intervention of this clinical study is in the random assignment of one of the two reverberant environments. Researchers will compare these children with a group of normal-hearing adults to anchor matured performances.

Official Title
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Development of Functional Spatial Hearing in Reverberation

Conditions
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Spatial Hearing Development

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Low-Reverberation
* Other: High-Reverberation


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: All individuals within age limits who are typically developing with normal hearing who pass 25 dB HL from 250 Hz to 8000 Hz. Exclusion Criteria: Individuals who fail hearing screen as described above. Individuals who have a diagnosed intellectual developmental disability

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 6 Years
Maximum Age: 30 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Basic Science
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: There are two arms in the exposure of reverberation for participants. For children (n1=45) and adults (n1=15) assigned to Arm 1, they receive a non-reverberant environment (control) and a low-reverberant environment (intervention A). For children (n2 = 45) and adults (n2 = 15) assigned to Arm 2, they receive the same non-reverberant environment (control) and a high-reverberant environment (intervention B). Both arms of children and adults enrolled perform the same psychoacoustic tasks for outcome assessments.
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Low-Reverberation<br>Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a low-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation. | Other: Low-Reverberation<br>* The exposure to low-reverberation is by presenting auditory stimuli to participants that are digitally processed to contain auditory cues that sound more or less reverberant, e.g., small classroom.<br>|
| Experimental: High-Reverberation<br>Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a high-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation. | Other: High-Reverberation<br>* The exposure to high-reverberation is by presenting auditory stimuli to participants that are digitally processed to contain auditory cues that sound more or less reverberant, e.g., large lecture hall/auditorium.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Auditory Object Size (Apparent Source Width) | Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable change in width of an auditory image in degree angular span in the horizontal plane | Year 1-3 | 
| Spatial Acuity (Minimum audible angle) | Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable angular separation between two auditory objects | Year 1-3 | 
| Spatial Unmasking (Minimum angular separation) | Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest angular separation to gain a target speech benefit in the presence of distracting speech maskers | Year 1-3 |