Hearing Loss Simulator

December 29, 2015 4:57 PM

Find out what hearing loss sounds like : 'You can't recreate hearing loss simply by plugging your ears. A person with normal hearing can hear quiet, medium and loud sounds that vary from low pitch to high pitch with amazing clarity and definition.When you have hearing loss, you often lose higher pitched sounds, like the sound of women's and children's voices or consonants like T, S and F. Even though you still may be able to hear strong vowel sounds such as A, E and I, speech becomes harder to comprehend.'
posted by honey-barbara (44 comments total)

This was a nifty simulator; I'd be interested in hearing a wider spectrum of hearing loss examples and situations. El Deafo showed a bit about how hearing loss can play out in different scenarios, and since then, I've been mildly curious to learn more.
posted by redsparkler at 5:23 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

WHAT?



Sorry. Had to do it. Had to quit doing live PA because it was that or going deaf.
posted by eriko at 5:37 PM on December 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

for some real fun they could have included a checkbox for tinnitus
posted by idiopath at 5:48 PM on December 29, 2015 [8 favorites]

you often lose higher pitched sounds, like the sound of women's and children's voices

When I forget myself and talk at a normal pitch, speed and volume to my dad, he just goes, "I think I hear a little bird twittering..." But it is less maddening for me than it is for him, for sure.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 6:04 PM on December 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

For me it is an empathy tool as one of my former DJ-ing friends has lost most of her hearing at 38. I checked 'severe' and was really surprised that it's nothing like (what I presumed of deafness) having massive sound-cancelling earphones at all, but a kind of murmuring brook. It's made it easier to understand how discombobulated and panicked she feels when there is more than one conversation or noise in the room.
posted by honey-barbara at 6:05 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

In case you're wondering what central auditory processing disorder is like: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/experiences/attexp2b.html
posted by michaelh at 6:18 PM on December 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

Well, this is upsetting. I just passed my twenties and these days whenever I'm listening to podcasts, movies, or anything with dialogue I turn the treble settings all the way up and have to take out all the bass because it's difficult for me to pick out what people are saying otherwise. Going to movies at theaters with lots of booms and music behind the dialogue makes things extra difficult. I can still hear stuff so I was hoping it was maybe just a processing thing.

My dad started losing his hearing in his early fifties and I guess I need to think about that.
posted by Anonymous at 6:20 PM on December 29, 2015

sent to my teenage sons. Thanks!
posted by randomkeystrike at 6:54 PM on December 29, 2015

another bad thing about hearing loss- whereas you can treat some pretty bad vision problems with glasses and people seem to do fine, everyone I know with hearing aids still seems to struggle a bit. Take care of your hearing when around guns, machines, live music, and other loud stuff.
posted by randomkeystrike at 6:57 PM on December 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm 30, this is something I worry about. My dad just got hearing aids last year, to great improvement. His dad needed them but never got them, it was tough to talk to him.

I find myself having difficult at bars and loud places - I figure, how can anyone hear in this environment? But other people seem to scream at each other and get along well enough.

Sometimes I wonder - are they mumbling? Should I ask them to speak up? Or is it my hearing?

My assumption is that a hearing aid just makes everything louder - and I don't need everything louder, because I can hear all sorts of stuff. It's distinguishing speaking from background noise, or over top of highway noise, that is difficult. How would audio amplification help with that? But maybe I'm actually wrong and this is something I should look into.
posted by rebent at 7:07 PM on December 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

rebent: Same here. I've had my hearing checked by an audiologist, and came up better-than-normal - absolutely perfect and actually better than expected at all frequencies for my age bracket ... but I still can't understand a word anyone says in a noisy environment, or if two people are speaking at once.
posted by dmd at 7:14 PM on December 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

Going to movies at theaters with lots of booms and music behind the dialogue makes things extra difficult.

Wearing earplugs to the movies helps me a lot. They seem to cut the lower-pitched sounds a lot more than the dialogue, so it's a much more pleasant experience. I also wear them in bars or anywhere else it's loud (though mostly I try to avoid loud.)
posted by asperity at 7:15 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've needed subtitles ever since I was a teenager, and I've always chalked that up to ADHD making it difficult for me to focus on the dialogue and everything else at the same time. This need for dialogue enhancement started in my mid-twenties and continued from there, but when I went to the audiologist two years ago and came back with no problems. So while I don't believe I need hearing aids yet, it is definitely something I will be getting checked every few years just in case.

I didn't know about the dementia bit. That's scary.
posted by Anonymous at 7:40 PM on December 29, 2015

Once upon a time, I had a radio voice-- I had a show and even did a few voice overs and I could run a contentious public hearing with ease. But following some vocal chord issues I can no longer control it. On a good day, I can still manage facilitation work, especially with a microphone, but there are fewer good days now. My voice is simultaneously diffuse, croaky and quiet. A lot of people--and most voice recognition software--have trouble hearing and/or understanding me. My mother recently purchased a phone that converts my speech to text, albeit imperfectly, in part so she can understand me better. It's very frustrating.

From what people tell me, I think listening to me is akin to the simulator's moderate example. Now I appreciate better how much I must frustrate other people. Time to get some voice coaching, I guess.
posted by carmicha at 8:10 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and yes - that PBS simulation hits it right on the nose.

I went to an Audiologist, and according to them, my hearing is nearly perfect. But loud places and places with a lot of different conversations going on simultaneously? Gets really tiring, really quickly and I'll often have 'hearing fatigue' at the end of the day.

I also use Closed Captioning/Subtitles whenever I can.
posted by spinifex23 at 8:14 PM on December 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, CPD is what the audiologist told me I have! But they also said there really wasn't anything to do about it so I dropped things there and continued on with using subtitles and whatnot.
posted by Anonymous at 8:20 PM on December 29, 2015

The one thing about this simulator is that it's best for people with little or no hearing impairment. You need a good memory to recall that one's hearing once was better than what is "normal" for you now.
posted by King Sky Prawn at 9:03 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see a simulation with a shared baseline.

So, I could take a quick hearing test, then my wife could take the same test.

Then the simulation would attenuate the playback, so she could "hear" what I hear in noisy environments.
Then we could settle once and for all that I'm not being unsociable^* at her work parties, I just have no idea what anyone is saying, so I nod and grin and hope I'm not agreeing that "Yes, Trump does have some reasonable ideas about internment camps."

^*Well, maybe a little unsociable..
posted by madajb at 10:07 PM on December 29, 2015 [8 favorites]

My assumption is that a hearing aid just makes everything louder - and I don't need everything louder, because I can hear all sorts of stuff. It's distinguishing speaking from background noise, or over top of highway noise, that is difficult. How would audio amplification help with that? But maybe I'm actually wrong and this is something I should look into.

rebent, the current generation of digital hearing aids have things like directional microphones (amplifies only stuff in front of you, not background noise behind you) and frequency transposition (high frequencies can be partly shifted into frequencies that you can better hear). They're definitely not perfect solutions and they may or may not work for you, depending on the extent of your hearing loss, but it's something worth looking into.
posted by angst at 10:43 PM on December 29, 2015

Oh, CPD is what the audiologist told me I have! But they also said there really wasn't anything to do about it so I dropped things there and continued on with using subtitles and whatnot.

Pretty much. I used to have a filter and I sat on the left side of classrooms to keep my left ear against the wall, but I couldn't tell if either remedy worked.
posted by michaelh at 2:39 AM on December 30, 2015

My assumption is that a hearing aid just makes everything louder - and I don't need everything louder, because I can hear all sorts of stuff.

My mom has severe hearing loss, and just got hearing aids a few months ago. I wouldn't have thought she'd needed them - I knew her hearing wasn't great, but she can carry on a conversation just fine - but she says certain voices are nearly impossible for her to hear.

The hearing aids do help with the registers she can't hear well, and in that way they're great. But what her hearing aids can't do well is filter out annoying sounds. When Mom wears her hearing aids, she can hear chewing and typing and all those noises most of us would just rather not hear. I was surprised that, when I visited her over the holidays, she spent more time with her hearing aids out than in.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:16 AM on December 30, 2015

"Ever since I got hearing aids, people have been shouting at me."

-- former coworker

(and no, if you couldn't tell -- it wasn't since he got hearing aids ... )
posted by oheso at 4:56 AM on December 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

For me the simulation is artificial. Perhaps because my hearing loss is only in one ear, at a given range of frequencies. So the clipping of various frequencies is not absolute -- it's a matter of degree.

This is confounded by the fact that my hearing loss is in my right ear, while I tend to sit at the left end of the table/hall owing to being left-handed. Amusing combination. I guess I'm lucky in that oheso.SO insists on sitting to my left and doesn't mind the occasional chopstick-hand-bump.

But yes to everyone who mentioned background noise. Makes it absolutely impossible to work out normal conversations. And I'd love to thank everyone who, when asked politely to repeat themselves, simply paraphrases the last bit of what they said. Thanks. You're not helping. It's the first bit that I didn't parse.

(Compounded by a bilingual situation in which speakers I haven't heard/distinguished assume that I didn't understand what they said.)
posted by oheso at 5:02 AM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

In case anyone was wondering how they could get their hands on that awesome, Boards-Of-Canada-esque recording of the woman, it is right here.

Interestingly it sounds like a lot of the audio is already pretty shoddily converted even at the "normal" level. I had to listen to some high-def audio to make sure that I wasn't just going deaf.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:31 AM on December 30, 2015

Auditory processing disorder! Yes. This explains why I score perfect on hearing tests, but can't understand people speaking behind me where I can't watch their mouths.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 6:34 AM on December 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

As the years go by I find myself less and less able to deal with overlapping sounds: groups of people talking, trying to listen to the radio while the dog is barking, even listening to someone talk to me while there is music in the background. That Central Auditory Processing Disorder link above made me cringe and I totally failed at it. It was horrible. Is anyone really capable of following the directions and getting the picture correct??
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:10 AM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not me, Elly Vortex. I got 2 of the tiles, tried it again concentrating as hard as I could, and got 5. I'd like to know how "normal" people do.

Many thanks for this, honey-barbara and michaelh.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:45 AM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Central Auditory Processing Disorder link is a simulation of the disorder (like the OP's simulation of deafness), not a test to sort normal from disordered auditory processing abilities.

From the preceding page:

"The following activity attempts to illustrate what it might be like for a first-grader with an attention disorder to try to concentrate on a set of oral instructions amidst a cacophony of classroom distractions."

So don't worry if you didn't get the right 'secret picture' at the end or just gave up after the first two shapes, that's the point.
posted by soy bean at 7:57 AM on December 30, 2015

But what her hearing aids can't do well is filter out annoying sounds. When Mom wears her hearing aids, she can hear chewing and typing and all those noises most of us would just rather not hear.

Her brain hasn't adjusted to being able to hear those things. It will start to filter them out. It takes a long time, sorry. Her ears probably aren't used to having things in them for long periods, so it's not surprising she takes them out. But she shouldn't, or she won't get used to them as quickly. I'd talk to her audiologist if this continues to be a problem - often they can adjust them to minimize certain frequencies. Depends how much money she spent on them though.

I've been wearing hearing aids since I was five so I'm not going to bother with this experiment because the results are going to be skewed. I honestly don't understand why people delay getting aids. Would you also refuse crutches if your leg was broken? Not getting them for reasons of "vanity" is just ableist, frankly. It implies that I am ugly or that I should be ashamed. I was at the audiologist this week and was pretty incensed that the brochures tout how invisible some of their products are. (I can't wear the in-the-ear type anyway since my hearing loss is too great.)
posted by desjardins at 9:28 AM on December 30, 2015 [7 favorites]

My dad has had hearing aids since forever (I know ever since I was born (when he was 38), and I imagine since he was in his 20s). His broke and he's had to go in to get them, but then some crap with testing and the ear doctor at the VA Hospital made him be his grumpy stubborn self. They want him to go back because he had powder in his ear (from some sort of cleaning/visual inspection prior to the testing) and the nurse refused to test claiming it would affect his hearing and he'd have to come back at a later date. He left grumpy and is now refusing to go back.

Admittedly it's a 3 hour drive to the fucking VA and his poor back sucks (but at the time he wasn't in as bad physical shape). My mom has been trying to get him to go and has saved money to get the hearing aid, but he's being a dick and it pisses us off, because we have to shout and he just kinda nods and walks away about half the time, when he's not being upset about not hearing us (as if it's our fault).

It's frustrating, but also sad. The link to dementia worries me a bit more, now. I know he's been less social and mom was hoping getting the hearing aid would help him be more social again. I wish he wasn't such a stubborn jackass fool sometimes.
posted by symbioid at 10:48 AM on December 30, 2015

Get hearing aids. Don't wait. Untreated hearing loss leads to dementia. And it's a waste of life and your brain trying to decipher the world around you. Don't wait out of vanity or fear. Just do it.

Yes, stoneweaver!

I am an ear, nose, and throat doctor and when I talk to patients about the need for early intervention with mild-moderate hearing loss, I feel like a used car salesman just trying to make a buck. We do sell hearing aids and they are extraordinarily expensive (the main markup is before they get to our office) but getting into a pair when your ability to discriminate different words accurately is high will help you preserve that discrimination ability, even if your pure tones continue to diminish. Cognitive decline can often be slowed or even stopped in its tracks with proper amplification.

And you pretty much get what you pay for. If you are a veteran with VA benefits, definitely get them from the VA - for all of their shortcomings, they offer fabulous hearing aids. For everybody else, bite the bullet, find an audiologist and an otolaryngologist you like and trust, and see what they recommend for your specific hearing loss. We are not trying to upsell you (well, we aren't and hopefully most ENT offices aren't). We want your to hear!
posted by Fritzle at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm not clear on the link to dementia... is it because hearing loss leads to social isolation and thus cognitive decline? Or is there a direct link between hearing and brain functioning?

I'm, uh, asking for a friend...
posted by math at 11:13 AM on December 30, 2015

math - it's actually likely both. There was a good JAMA article out of Johns Hopkins two years ago that demonstrated that older adults with hearing loss had cognitive abilities that declined some 30 percent to 40 percent faster than in those whose hearing was normal and that the cognitive decline was directly related to the severity of hearing loss.

From the summary article:

Possible explanations for the cognitive slide, Lin says, include the ties between hearing loss and social isolation, with loneliness being well established in previous research as a risk factor for cognitive decline. Degraded hearing may also force the brain to devote too much of its energy to processing sound, and at the expense of energy spent on memory and thinking. He adds there may also be some common, underlying damage that leads to both hearing and cognitive problems.

A separate study from the same institution showed that there was a direct correlation between hearing loss and accelerated brain tissue volume loss.
posted by Fritzle at 11:22 AM on December 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

For everybody else, bite the bullet, find an audiologist and an otolaryngologist you like and trust, and see what they recommend for your specific hearing loss

What if there is just no possible way to be able to afford them? Both my parents need them and the cost is insane. They don't qualify for any sort of financial help and they can't get a loan. What ARE people supposed to do?

I am not yelling at you Fritzle, I'd love to know how to get my parents hearing aids that they can afford.
posted by futz at 11:41 AM on December 30, 2015

I have always had trouble understanding people, especially in loud places, or even not loud places, and I prefer subtitles in movies. My earliest memory of being aware of how difficult it is to process speech is from 4th grade, but I was put through numerous hearing exams throughout school, and was never recommended hearing aids. I've always thought it was a neurological thing, and not hearing loss, since I have ADD and have trouble following conversations anyway, but maybe that's the effect, and not the cause.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:07 PM on December 30, 2015

I honestly don't understand why people delay getting aids. Would you also refuse crutches if your leg was broken?

The hearing aids suggested for my mother are $7,000, none of which is covered by her insurance. She delays getting them because she needs to eat food and pay her mortgage.

FWIW if crutches were $7,000 she'd have to delay them too.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:40 PM on December 30, 2015

futz, Costco is noticeably less expensive than private audiologists. I am not a Costco fan in general, and feel a little weird that I keep recommending them, but for hearing aids they're less than half the price of anywhere else I've looked.

desjardins, I couldn't agree more. If the manufacturers stopped trying to make hearing aids "invisible" (which they're not), they could be bigger, so have more processing power, and have the microphones in front rather than behind the wearers' ears, so pick up sound better. Plus, they'd be more noticeable, so people would maybe remember to talk louder around hearing aid wearers.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 2:31 PM on December 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

My hearing loss was diagnosed at age 40, but it's probably been there my whole life. I have 1 remaining hearing aid, which needs repair. Saving up for a new ones. I miss them soooo much. I had an analog hearing aid at 40 - they pretty much suck. The new ones are digital and are vastly better. Know somebody with hearing loss? Encourage them to get hearing aids. Know anybody with old analog hearing aids? Encourage them to upgrade. I spend a lot of my brain's processing power trying to understand the world; hearing aids make life way more manageable.

If you know someone with hearing loss, learn how to communicate with them, and don't complain. Seriously. Hearing loss is invisible. You can't see how hard I have to work to manage it, you don't see the dent in my wallet from hearing aids and batteries, you have No Idea of the social isolation from not being able to participate fully in conversation. You don't see that it's jeopardizing my current job. Put in that tiny effort to include me and others in conversation; it's not that hard. thanks.
posted by theora55 at 2:31 PM on December 30, 2015 [7 favorites]

Plus, they'd be more noticeable, so people would maybe remember to talk louder around hearing aid wearers.

I don't mean to be dismissive but maybe unicorns would also fart rainbows. My own parents mumble and face away from me when they speak. Everyone needs to read theora55's links. I just flat out ignore people when I've told them a few times to face me and don't mumble. I can't really be rude at work, and I'm on the phone a lot, so I'm just mentally exhausted when I get home because of all the processing I've had to do. (On top of the stress of my actual job.)

I think my last hearing aid went entirely on a credit card. I have little choice if I want to work in my career field. (Yes, employers are supposed to make reasonable accommodations but I'm not super confident in their ability to do so. What would they do for conference calls that wouldn't frustrate everyone else?)
posted by desjardins at 2:50 PM on December 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

side rant: people who whine about using closed captioning when we're watching something together can DIAF
posted by desjardins at 3:24 PM on December 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

What if there is just no possible way to be able to afford them? Both my parents need them and the cost is insane. They don't qualify for any sort of financial help and they can't get a loan. What ARE people supposed to do?

You might try MDHearing. These are medical grade, certified hearing aids that you can buy on line for about $650 a pair, one tenth the price of some custom aids. They are digital hearing aids whose quality compares to even the most expensive custom aids from five years ago.

They are suitable for those with mild to moderate hearing loss typically from aging. There are four user-selectable frequency response settings to accommodate typical age-related flat to high frequency hearing loss.

They can be life changing for those unable to afford the overpriced, high-end devices. They include a 45-day full-refund trial.
posted by JackFlash at 4:44 PM on December 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

In case you're wondering what central auditory processing disorder is like: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/experiences/attexp2b.html

I did it and when we flipped the cards over, mine looked right. Am I a central processing genius?

Also, I had "moderate" hearing loss in one ear temporarily a while back. What hasn't been mentioned yet is that in loud places like malls, all the background noise would blend into one awful sound that was actually borderline painful to hear.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:07 PM on December 31, 2015

I'm a person with moderate to severe hearing loss, and I just listened to the demo and while the different levels clearly had different volumes, I couldn't detect a difference in sound quality, like the loss of high pitch noises. This might be because my hearing in the upper frequency ranges is so poor that I can't tell when the sound has been stripped out. I'm curious how other people would describe the difference between the four simulations. I've always wanted to have a way to let other people experience what I hear, so they can better understand how I experience the world.

I spend a huge amount of energy everyday at work just trying to listen. Like desjardins, I am exhausted at the end of every day. It's worrying to know that this may ultimately have cognitive effects as well. I've talked to my boss and my team about things we can do to mitigate my struggles, and while some people are consistently good with me, most try for a little while and then go back to their regular habits. It gets exhausting to have to keep reminding/asking the same people to speak up or not speak over others (including my boss, who says she wants to do everything she can to help!). Like desjardins, there's always a few people who I just have to give up on and ignore, because it is simply too much work. We do often work in very large groups, where it is entirely conversation-based. Some people help by scribing on the whiteboard, which helps me anchor the conversation, but I find that the world is dominated by verbal/auditory exchange over visual. I love my job in all other respects, but I often fantasise about having a way to earn a living that didn't involve having to talk to people all the time.

And as for the big hearing aids, I've always said I'd prefer something like these Bang and Olufsen earphones over the silly I'm-trying-to-disguise-the-fact-that-I'm-a-hearing-aid approach of the hearing aid manufacturers. I often wear my hair up, just so that people can SEE my behind-the-ear hearing aids and be reminded that I have a hearing loss. Hidden aids don't really help people know that you have a hearing problem. I've never understood the stigma around hearing aids. I mean, everyone knows someone who's hard of hearing. But I feel like hearing aid design actually contributes to the stigma.

Desjardins, it makes me livid to look at all the hearing aid marketing materials where no one in the photos is actually wearing a visible hearing aid! Argh!
posted by amusebuche at 8:46 AM on January 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Agree with you so much amusebuche and Desjardins. There are some people I work with who just never seem to remember that I need them to face me, not cover their mouths with their hands, project and so forth. I wear two hearing aids and sometimes think about adding a lot of bling to them just to make them more obvious. Sometimes it's just more effort than it's worth and I find myself more inclined to be a bit of a hermit because it is exhausting to process, especially in settings with a lot of ambient noise.
posted by leslies at 9:47 AM on January 1, 2016 [1 favorite]