RA 5: From hearing to understanding for participation in society

This research area aims to better understand hearing and hearing loss in real-life situations through three facets: the effects of hearing and understanding in more natural listening situations, the effects of multilingualism on hearing, and the effects of hearing loss on social interaction.

Transitioning our approach from studying hearing to language understanding is crucial for better, ecologically valid hearing assessments and individually tailored hearing devices. To reach greater ecological validity, we translate our experimental approaches into real-world scenarios and include more diverse populations. This real-life approach also acknowledges a changing society where migration increases multilingualism and non-native speakers. It is crucial to understand the effects of language-specific features on hearing and comprehension and the effects of listening in a non-native language. Furthermore, the inclusion of children and adults with hearing loss in mainstream schools and workplaces has long been a complex challenge. Studying the effects of hearing loss on social interaction, a prerequisite for participation, is therefore essential. We intensify our connections to the humanities, strengthening our psycholinguistic approach to achieve this. These advances are closely linked with our technical solutions, such as automatic speech recognition.

This approach will not only better connect listeners to their social surroundings but also enhance hearing diagnostics and interventions for real-life communicative situations for a diverse group of listeners.