Speech-in-noise performance varies among individuals with similar hearing sensitivity. Such variability may manifest as varying cortical representations of speech in noise, which may stem from peripheral sensory fidelity and the efficacy of top-down attention....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
No actionable practice change yet; findings advance understanding of why speech-in-noise ability varies among people with similar audiograms, but do not yet translate to a clinical protocol or test.
Understanding the interplay between cortical and subcortical processing could eventually inform more precise diagnosis and treatment of speech-in-noise difficulties beyond what the standard audiogram captures.
- 01Cortical speech-in-noise processing is linked to subcortical (brainstem-level) syllable encoding.
- 02Lexical attention — the brain's focus on word meaning — also influences how speech is processed in noise.
- 03Individual differences in speech-in-noise performance exist even among people with similar hearing sensitivity.
- 04Published in Hearing Research (DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2026.109773).
- 05Findings may help explain why the audiogram alone is a poor predictor of real-world listening difficulty.
Cortical speech-in-noise processing reflects subcortical syllable encoding.
studypartially supportedLexical attention contributes to individual variability in speech-in-noise performance.
studypartially supportedListeners with similar hearing sensitivity show meaningful individual variability in speech-in-noise performance.
studysupported- PMID
- 42579923
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.heares.2026.109773.
- Journal
- Hearing Research
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- Listeners with similar hearing sensitivity but variable speech-in-noise performance
- Intervention
- Assessment of cortical speech-in-noise processing and subcortical syllable encoding with lexical attention manipulation
Primary outcomes
Relationship between cortical speech-in-noise processing and subcortical syllable encoding; Role of lexical attention in speech-in-noise performance; Sources of individual variability in speech-in-noise ability