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H2020Doctoral network2017–2021

HEAR-ECO · HEAR-ECO Innovative Hearing Aid Research - Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2017-12-01 → 2021-11-30
EU contribution
€1,637,488
Participants
4
Scheme
MSCA-ITN-EID

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

HEAR-ECO Innovative Hearing Aid Research - Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures

In today’s aging European population, hearing impairment is an increasing concern for public health and social participation, affecting one in three older adults. The H2020 EC Marie-Curie ITN project “Innovative Hearing Aid Research – Ecological Conditions and Outcome Measures” (HEAR-ECO765329) addresses this concern by developing and combining new tools and outcome measures for realistic communication, and translating these tools into innovative developments and evaluations of new technology for those with hearing loss. At its core, HEAR-ECO will train a new team of researchers working at the nexus of technology, psychology, physiology and audiology. The PhD students will work together to creatively combine three established measures of listening effort, and to develop innovative conditions for testing hearing aids. Moreover, this research will develop bold new tests, analyses techniques, and technologies that will create more realistic listening conditions. HEAR-ECO will assess how task demands, motivation, and invested effort modulate speech understanding and hearing-aid benefit in daily life. Please see also www.hear-eco.eu

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

In today’s ageing European population, hearing impairment is an increasing concern for public health and societal participation. The percentage of hearing-impaired people will rise from around 16% of the adult EU population now to around 40% in 2030. Hearing aid (HA) fitting is the most widely prescribed solution for hearing impairment. However, only around 30%-40% of adults with hearing impairment use HAs in daily life. One of the reasons for this is that methods used to develop and evaluate HAs are still not based on conditions in which HAs are actually used. Thus the potential of improved HA technology to meet the needs of individual users in their daily lives is acutely under-exploited. The science in HEAR-ECO will help to facilitate the paradigm shift which is needed to bridge the gap. Such a paradigm shift requires a new generation of hearing scientists that are able to integrate conventional Audiology with Motivational and Social psychology (motivation to listen, cognition), Psychophysiology (pupillometry, PEP, EEG), and HA technology. HEAR-ECO will train six ESRs capable of spanning these disciplines and translating their knowledge into innovative technological HA evaluation and development. The six ESRs will be trained through local training at academic partners in The Netherlands and the UK and secondment to one of the largest hearing aid manufacturers in the world in Denmark – and through network wide training, including an associated partner in Liverpool. The ESRs will be capable of developing and combining new tools and outcome measures for realistic everyday communication and translating this to innovative technological HA evaluation and development.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

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Data: CORDIS, © European Union