I get hearing services from a university department of audiology. All sorts of people may need assistance with hearing but that need is associated with the elderly. The department has doctoral students who must do research projects to complete their degree. This morning, I was an experimental subject for such a student.
The basic question of her research is “How much do hearing loops actually help?” Today, my first job was to sit in a sound booth that isolates me from outside noises and listen to the student speak a list of words. I was to repeat back to her each word after she said it. Then, we moved to a room with a hearing loop and I listened to recorded whole sentences being spoken, which I was again to repeat back.
Despite the similarity between the first and second tasks, the 2nd was harder. There were a few times when I could not understand a word in a sentence. The researcher told me that while it is undoubtedly true that the language-decoding part of my brain now takes a few more microseconds to let me know the words that were in the sound I heard, I should not underestimate the importance of context. She said when I am listening to a speaker, that message has a unity and that context is always working to suggest the actual words I hear.
People who have difficulty hearing say “What was that?” or “What did you say?” or “I’m sorry but I don’t know what you said” quite often. Of course, the most frequent target of such questions is one’s partner. Mine is patient, but even she sometimes gets a little frustrated at the number of times I ask “What?” We both realized today that when one of us is at the other end of the house, a comment comes to her mind without my knowing the context so her words more or less come out of the blue. That is part of the reason for my laughable translations of her utterances.
The most emphatic failures of listening that I currently experience happen at the end of a scene in some British tv show. The situation is usually a character leaving and with back turned to the audience, muttering something. The statement is often a key piece of information in understanding what is happening but is said quietly and in an offhand manner. It may be a secret or something embarrassing or shameful or dangerous to know or say. Therefore, it is said quickly. When you add in British or Scottish or Irish pronunciation, the utterance can be hard to understand. That is when I have to ask what was said. About 70% of the time, my wife can tell me but sometimes neither of us knows.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
