Emotion to our ears: Hearing aids that amplify all sound levels might restore the ability to hear emotion in voices
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.
Experimental study: At least one thing in the experiment was changed to see if it had an impact on the subjects (often people or animals) – eg: changing the amount of time mice spend on an exercise wheel to find out what impact it has on weight loss.
People: This is a study based on research using people.
Experimental study: At least one thing in the experiment was changed to see if it had an impact on the subjects (often people or animals) – eg: changing the amount of time mice spend on an exercise wheel to find out what impact it has on weight loss.
People: This is a study based on research using people.
Swedish researchers suggest that people with hearing loss may be able to better or regain their ability to recognise emotion in the voices of others by using hearing aids that are capable of linear amplification - amplification across all sound levels. The team asked 21 experienced hearing aid users and 20 people with normal hearing to try and recognise emotion from spoken sentences. The people wearing hearing aids that had linear amplification were significantly more likely to recognise happiness, the researchers say, as well as having better scores for recognising non-verbal vocalisations such as fear and anger.
Funder: Örjan Dahlström was partly funded through a grant from The Swedish Association of Hard of Hearing People. Ref 2016-531. https://hrf.se/
