Human beings are profoundly social animals, and social behavior unique to humans typically pivots on the ability to use language to communicate. One important type of information carried in a speech signal is the talker’s emotional state. To date, little is known about the consequences of hearing loss on emotional perception and the experience of listening to speech that contains vocal emotion when using hearing aids. This presentation provides a broad overview of research findings and methodologies used in emotion research that are relevant for audiology. It also describes research from the literature (and our lab) that investigates the perceptual (e.g., word-recognition and emotion-identification performance) and socioemotional consequences of listening to speech that contains vocal emotion information, as well as how these affect the everyday social experiences of those with hearing loss.
Learning Objectives
After this session, participants will be able to:
- compare and contrast different research methodologies used to understand human emotions;
- discuss some perceptual and socioemotional consequences of hearing loss when listening to sounds that contain emotional information; and
- discuss how hearing rehabilitation may influence socioemotional experience and functioning.
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