Development of Functional Spatial Hearing in Reverberation

April 23, 2026 updated by: Ellen Peng, Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
The goal of the clinical trial study (Phase 0) is to map out the developmental trajectory of functional spatial hearing abilities in reverberant environments for children with normal hearing between the ages of 6 and 18 years, and to understand the inter-relationships between the three perceptual abilities: auditory object size formation, spatial acuity, and spatial unmasking during typical development. Children are asked to perform psychoacoustic tasks when the auditory stimuli are processed to present in virtual acoustic environments (1) with no reverberation and (2) with one of the two levels of reverberation that emulate everyday indoor environments. The intervention of this clinical study is in the random assignment of one of the two reverberant environments. Researchers will compare these children with a group of normal-hearing adults to anchor matured performances.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

116

Phase

  • Early Phase 1

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Nebraska
      • Omaha, Nebraska, United States, 68131
        • Boys Town National Research Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All individuals within age limits who are typically developing with normal hearing who pass 25 dB HL from 250 Hz to 8000 Hz.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Individuals who fail hearing screen as described above.
  • Individuals who have a diagnosed intellectual developmental disability

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Low-Reverberation
Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a low-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation.
Other: Low-Reverberation
The exposure to low-reverberation is by presenting auditory stimuli to participants that are digitally processed to contain auditory cues that sound more or less reverberant, e.g., small classroom.
Experimental: High-Reverberation
Participants perform psychoacoustic tasks under a high-reverberant environment and a control environment without reverberation.
Other: High-Reverberation
The exposure to high-reverberation is by presenting auditory stimuli to participants that are digitally processed to contain auditory cues that sound more or less reverberant, e.g., large lecture hall/auditorium.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Auditory Object Size (Apparent Source Width)
Time Frame: Year 1-3
Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable change in width of an auditory image in degree angular span in the horizontal plane
Year 1-3
Spatial Acuity (Minimum audible angle)
Time Frame: Year 1-3
Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest detectable angular separation between two auditory objects
Year 1-3
Spatial Unmasking (Minimum angular separation)
Time Frame: Year 1-3
Psychoacoustic measure of the smallest angular separation to gain a target speech benefit in the presence of distracting speech maskers
Year 1-3

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Father Flanagan's Boys' Home

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Z. Ellen Peng, Father Flanagan's Boys' Home

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

January 1, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2026

Study Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 4, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 4, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

April 18, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 28, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 23, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • BoysTown

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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