Mediators and Moderators of Auditory Training

April 15, 2026 updated by: Aaron Seitz, Northeastern University

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn how Auditory Training (AT) may help people better understand speech in noisy environments. As people get older, it becomes harder for them to hear speech clearly when there is background noise. This can be frustrating, and it can affect their independence and quality of life. AT is often used to support people with and without hearing loss, especially when a person is not a good candidate for a hearing aid or when amplification from a hearing aid does not improve performance.

The investigators want to gather reliable data to understand how AT works and what affects its success.

The main questions the trial aims to answer are:

  • How do different types of sounds influence the effectiveness of auditory training?
  • Which auditory training approaches are most successful in improving speech understanding?
  • How do personal traits impact the results of auditory training?

The investigators will study a large and diverse group of 1,260 participants, including both young and older adults, to evaluate various auditory training approaches.

You will:

  • Take part in auditory training sessions that include different types of auditory tasks.
  • Complete tests that measure how well they understand speech in both quiet and noisy settings.
  • Complete surveys on personal data like demographics, hearing challenges and other factors to help researchers understand what might influence training results.

The investigators will measure and compare the results of these approaches to find out which ones are most effective. This could help people who are at risk of cognitive decline, like those at risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

1260

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

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

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Riverside, California, United States, 92521
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115
        • Recruiting
        • Northeastern University
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Aaron Seitz, PhD
        • Contact:
    • Oregon
      • Portland, Oregon, United States, 97239
        • Recruiting
        • Oregon Health & Science University
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Tess Koerner, PhD

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18-30 and 60-85 years of age.
  • No self-reported auditory difficulties and normal or near-normal hearing sensitivity as measured by SRTs.
  • Older adults aged 50-85 should have no more than typical hearing loss for their age and no evidence of dementia.
  • Fluent in English and/or Spanish

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Abnormal vision or hearing prohibitive of training
  • History of seizures, focal brain lesion, or head injury with loss of consciousness
  • Physical handicap (motor or perceptual) that would impede training procedures
  • Medical illness requiring treatment during the study timeline
  • Social, educational or economic hardship prohibitive to training schedule
  • Concurrent enrollment in other cognitive training studies
  • History of major psychiatric illness, including psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, alcohol or substance abuse, recent bereavement
  • Plans to travel out of the area for more than 1 week during the intervention period
  • Residence too far from the testing site, which would prevent attending the testing sessions (> 60 miles)
  • Not being proficient enough in English or Spanish that would prevent following and understanding all instructions and completing all testing sessions

Additional exclusion criteria for older adults:

  • Diagnosis of dementia or other neurological disease, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
  • Telephone-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (t-MoCA) score of 16 or less or Montreal Cognitive AssessmentMoCA) score of 20 or less

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: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: STM Training
Behavioral: STM Training
This condition consists of an up/down spectral-temporal modulations (STM) presented both in quiet and with competing background noise
Experimental: Speech Training
Behavioral: Speech Training
Participants will train on the identification of three sets of speech stimuli of increasing linguistic complexity: individual phonemes (vowels), spondaic words, and matrix sentences.
Experimental: Mixed Training
Behavioral: Mixed Training
This condition involves both the STM and the speech training, described above, and an additional module training localization.
Experimental: Gamified Training
Behavioral: Gamified Training
This uses auditory training within a game experience where players control a game avatar (the "wisp") that appears to fly through a landscape. Players were asked to help the wisp avoid obstacles or choose from among options based on a variety of sound cues.
Experimental: Foraging Training
Behavioral: Foraging Training
This adds a component to the game where participants navigate the wisp to the location on the screen that relates to the target stimulus. The concept here is that searching for targets with manual movements, ecologically stimulates sensori-motor loops where the actions of the participants generates the auditory stimuli that are heard.
No Intervention: Business As Usual

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Digits-in-Noise (DIN) Task
Time Frame: Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
The DIN tests the ability to identify a series of digits in varying levels of background noise.
Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
Spatial Release From Masking (SRM)
Time Frame: Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
Tests the ability to identify a target talker in the presence of competing speech signals that are either colocated or spatially separated from the target.
Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
Dichotic Sentence Identification (DSI)
Time Frame: Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
The DSI test simultaneously presents two nonsense sentences, one to each ear. Participants indicate two sentences heard from a list of 10 alternatives.
Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Revised Hearing Handicap Inventory (RHHI)
Time Frame: Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
The Revised Hearing Handicap Inventory (RHHI) is a self-assessment questionnaire designed to evaluate the perceived social and emotional effects of hearing loss on an individual's daily life.
Pre-test (day 3), mid-test (day 20), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
Auditory Visual Divided Attention Test (AVDAT)
Time Frame: Pretest (day 3), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)
Auditory Visual Divided Attention Test (AVDAT) is a test of working memory that compares conditions when attention is to just a single modality (auditory or visual) or divided across modalities.
Pretest (day 3), post-test (day 36), follow-up (day 66)

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Northeastern University

Collaborators

Oregon Health and Science University
University of California, Riverside

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Aaron Seitz, PhD, Northeastern University
  • Principal Investigator: Tess Koerner, PhD, Oregon Health and Science University

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 6, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

May 31, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

May 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 21, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 31, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

February 6, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 20, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 15, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 22066

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Data will be available persistently at the conclusion of the study.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

There are no access criteria.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • SAP
  • ICF

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

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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