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Participants for UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences study

20 September 2012

The UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences department is looking for participants over the age of 60 with good hearing for a study looking at the effects of ageing on speech perception in noisy environments.

The study hopes to answer why it becomes more difficult to understand speech in noisy environments as we get older. We try to find out how our brains process sounds in the presence of background noise. We hope this study will provide guidance to future methods of diagnosis and rehabilitation.

Participants would take part two sessions of about 3 hours each. One session will involve some reading and listening tasks. The other session involves the recording of the auditory brainstem response (using several sensors placed on your head) whilst sitting in a reclining chair and listening to sounds over headphones.

You will receive £7 per hour for your participation. The study will take place at Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street (WC1N 1PF).

This study has been approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee (SHaPSethSR049).

You are eligible to take part if you:

  • Are between 60 and 90 years old
  • Have good hearing
  • Grew up speaking English and no other languages
  • Do not have language or learning difficulties, neurological disorders, multiple sclerosis, tinnitus, or diabetes. Nor are we able to include people who have had a stroke or who have had chemotherapy.

Please contact Tim Schoof (t.schoof@ucl.ac.uk, 020 76794041, 07 903011966) for further information or to arrange a time slot. 

Tim Schoof, UCL Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences