Juliet England: New research into hearing aid users could revolutionise the ‘bleep test’

In common with most hearing aid users, I’ve invariably had my hearing assessed using the standard ‘bleep’ test in which you push a button when you think you’ve heard sounds, played at various frequencies and volumes. In my case, I’ve been attending such appointments for the best part of a quarter of a century.

In truth, I’ve always wondered whether these tests weren’t a little primitive. Equally, I always find the experience fraught with peril, since I’m never sure whether I’ve heard a sound or not, often pressing the button anyway, just because I think I may have done.

Now a new piece of research at the University College London Ear Institute, and funded by the Biomedical Research Council, could change all that.

Working under principal researcher Jennifer Bizley, Bhavisha Parmar (left) is completing a PhD which looks at how well those without a hearing loss and those who use bilateral aids or cochlear implants can localise sounds and distinguish between different words.

Parmar is combining her research with working two days a week as a paediatric team lead audiologist in south-west London, and developed a pilot for this project as part of her Master’s degree.

In her base at the Ear Institute, she explains: “Background noise is often a problem, which may reflect underlying problems with distinguishing speech from noise, and/or knowing where some sounds are coming from.

“Even after being fitted with their aids, patients often complain about things like background noise in an open-plan office or catching everything in a meeting. Or two people can have the same bleep test result, but have very different needs for their hearing aids. So the technology still isn’t where it should be, and there’s a lot more we can learn.

“We’re keen to know how well the latest amplification devices perform in these areas, and what other factors may affect performance. And we really hope this research will help us look at the impact on hearing loss of speech identification and sound localisation, as well as increasing understanding of the benefits and limitations of the existing hearing aid technology.

“We’re hoping that some patterns will begin to emerge quite quickly.”

Part of the project, which has around another three years to run and started this January, will involve working with hearing aid manufacturers, and Parmar will be visiting Danish company Oticon in Copenhagen and attending the International Hearing Aid Conference at Lake Tahoe, California, in August.

So far, around 14 volunteers have taken part, and Parmar ideally wants to involve around 50 participants, mostly aged over 40, and including an age-matched control group of people without a hearing loss.

My turn to do the test and I enter the soundproofed anechoic chamber to take it. It’s quite the most mesmerising room I’ve entered for a while, and designed to completely absorb reflections of soundwaves. It has a springy wire mesh floor rather than one with a hard surface, and geometric foam shapes on the walls. I can’t stop myself from calling it the Red Room of Pain. I am a bad person.

But there’s no actual pain involved. I sit opposite a row of around a dozen or so speakers, and Parmar hands me a tablet.

The first part of the test merely involves correctly identifying which word you hear and pressing the relevant image on the tablet. They are simple words but fiendishly hard to distinguish – heart, hurt and heat, for example, or cheat, cheese and cheap, and you only get to hear each one once. At the same time, there is a background noise that sounds like a male voice, played at standard conversational volume.

For the second part of the test, it gets trickier, with the same series of words heard in pairs this time. What’s more, you then have to say where each word comes from in relation to the one uttered immediately before – i.e. was the sound source to the left or right or right of it.

I don’t find this easy at all. But, of course, it’s not a school exam and there’s no pass or fail. I emerge into the summer sunshine of a London mid-morning having spent a fascinating couple of hours with Parmar and hope that this project has the participation and success it deserves. When I go for my latest bleep test this week, I will do so with fresh eyes, if not, alas, fresh ears.

To take part, contact Bhavisha Parmar: bhavisha.parmar@ucl.ac.uk

Read more of Juliet’s articles for us here.

Juliet England does freelance social media and PR work for cSeeker.