Objective assessment of the "listening effort" in audiology

It is well known that subjects with hearing loss not only have a deficiency in peripheral auditory sensitivity, but they can also experience detrimental consequences in different functional domains. "Listening effort"is one of the more promising ways of explaining part of the variation in these real-life consequences. This review focuses on evidence which is the gold standard for the objective measurement of listening effort in clinical practice. The limitations and benefits of the different tools and the applicability in evaluation of subjects with HL are described. English language articles were identified through systematic searches in PubMed and in the Cochrane Library. Peer-reviewed research articles were included from inception until the present. References of eligible studies were checked. The Population, Intervention, Control, Outcomes, andStudy design strategy were used to create inclusion criteria for relevance. Initial searches for research produced unique articles after removal of duplicates. After selection, cross-reference checking, and review for clinical relevance, 64 studies met the inclusion criteria for this review. This review emphasizes that there is no consensus on a gold standard measurement of listening effort because multiple domains influence this experience. The best clinical practice suggests using different types of measurement in order to capture different cognitive aspects. Furthermore, different setup elements can influence methodologies for assessing listening effort. In particular, the experimental setups applied, the stimuli used, the HL degree, and the age of participants are significant elements in listening effort studies.