Interactions between cognition and hearing aid compression release time: Effects of linguistic context of speech test materials on speech-in-noise performance

Difference in speech recognition performance with short and long release time processing has been noted in previous research. Recent research has established a connection between hearing aid users' cognitive abilities and release time. Researchers hope to use cognitive ability as a predictor of release time selection. The results from these previous studies have been contradictory. Some researchers hypothesized that linguistic context of speech recognition test materials was one of the factors that accounted for the inconsistency. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between hearing aid users' cognitive abilities and their aided speech recognition performance with short and long release time using speech recognition tests with different amounts of linguistic context.;Thirty-four experienced hearing aid users participated in the present study. Their cognitive abilities were quantified using a reading span test. Digital behind-the-ear style hearing aids with adjustable release time settings were bilaterally fitted to the participants. Their aided speech recognition performance was evaluated using three tests with different amounts of linguistic context: the Word-In-Noise (WIN) test, the American Four Alternative Auditory Feature (AFAAF) test, and the Bamford-Kowal-Bench Speech-In-Noise (BKB-SIN) test.;The present study replicated the results of an earlier study using an equivalent speech recognition test. The results from the present study also showed that hearing aid users with high cognitive abilities performed better on the AFAAF and the BKB-SIN compared to those with low cognitive abilities when using short release time processing. Results showed that none of the speech recognition tests produced significantly different performance between the short and the long release times for either cognitive group. This finding did not support the hypothesis of the effect of linguistic context on aided speech recognition performance with different release time settings. Results from the present study suggest that cognitive ability might not be important in prescribing release time.