Understanding Speech in Background Noise
September 15, 2026 updated by: Ohio State University
The Susceptibility of Speech to Noise
The goal of this clinical trial is to establish how speech understanding is affected by background noise in people with normal hearing. The main questions it aims to answer are:
- Does noise affect speech understanding similarly in all frequency regions?
- Does adding noise cause speech understanding to fall away at a similar rate across frequencies?
Participants will listen to speech in different frequency regions, with noise added at various levels, and respond with the words that they hear.
Study Overview
Status
Enrolling by invitation
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
Detailed Description
Participants will be seated comfortably throughout the experiment.
Stimuli involving speech mixed with background noise at various levels will be played back from a PC and presented diotically over headphones at a level of approximately 65 dBA in each ear.
Subjects will be instructed to repeat back each sentence, guessing if unsure.
The experimenter will record component words correctly recalled.
Sentences will not be repeated, and only exact-word matches will be accepted.
A 10-minute practice stage will precede testing, in which subjects will hear example stimuli and sentences not used for testing.
Test duration will not exceed two hours.
Multiple groups of listeners will be employed, and the basic experimental protocol for each participant will be identical, differing only with regard to differences in the frequency content of the speech and/or the background noise present.
Participants will be randomly assigned to groups.
Study Type
Interventional
Enrollment (Estimated)
200
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 Locations
-
-
Ohio
-
Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43210
- The Ohio State University
-
-
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:
- Age between 18 and 70 years
- Native English speakers
- No known history of cognitive impairment
- No known history of hearing impairment
Exclusion Criteria:
- Age under 18 or over 70 years
- Non-native English speaker
- Known history of cognitive impairment
- Known history of hearing impairment
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: Single
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / Arm |
Intervention / Treatment |
|---|---|
|
Experimental: Low-frequency region
Speech and noise filtered to the low frequencies
|
Speech will be filtered into one of three frequency regions.
Background noise will be added to the speech at different levels.
|
|
Experimental: Mid-frequency region
Speech and noise filtered to the mid frequencies
|
Speech will be filtered into one of three frequency regions.
Background noise will be added to the speech at different levels.
|
|
Experimental: High-frequency region
Speech and noise filtered to the high frequencies
|
Speech will be filtered into one of three frequency regions.
Background noise will be added to the speech at different levels.
|
What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
|
Percent words correct
Time Frame: During a single listening session lasting not more than 2 hours
|
The percentage of words correctly heard and reported by the listener
|
During a single listening session lasting not more than 2 hours
|
Collaborators and Investigators
This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.
Publications and helpful links
The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.
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 (Estimated)
September 30, 2026
Primary Completion (Estimated)
August 31, 2027
Study Completion (Estimated)
August 31, 2027
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
September 10, 2026
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
September 15, 2026
First Posted (Actual)
September 16, 2026
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (Actual)
September 16, 2026
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
September 15, 2026
Last Verified
September 1, 2026
More Information
Terms related to this study
Other Study ID Numbers
- R21DC022428 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)
Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)
Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?
UNDECIDED
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.