Effects of Hearing Aids in a Simulated Open-Plan Office: A Laboratory Study Involving Normal-Hearing Participants and Simulated Hearing Loss

OBJECTIVE: Over the past decade, the prevalence of hearing aid users in open-plan offices has risen significantly. This study investigates the potential effects of wearing hearing aids on cognitive performance and psychological state in noisy office environments. METHODS: A laboratory experiment involved 46 normal-hearing participants. Four sound conditions mixed speech with open-plan office noise at varying signal-to-noise ratios. Stimuli were recorded in a semi-anechoic room using an acoustic dummy head with and without hearing aids, and moderate hearing loss was simulated. Participants performed a 1 h 40 min press review task over headphones. Performance, sound environment perception, fatigue and mental workload were assessed. Repeated-measures analyses of variance was performed to analyse the data. RESULTS: The results revealed a significant principal effect of wearing hearing aids on each of the three dimensions of sound environment perception: noisy ( F (1,44)=70.52, ***p < 0.001, ), annoying ( F (1,44) = 58.40, ***p < 0.001, ) and tiring ( F (1,44) = 34.44, ***p < 0.001, ). In all cases, the environment was perceived more poorly with hearing aids (e.g., mean annoyance = 4.4 vs. 2.7). A small but significant effect was also found on external mental workload ( F (1,45) = 6.1 p* = 0.017, ). No significant effects were detected impacting task performance, perceived fatigue or other workload dimensions (available resources, germane workload). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that, when activities require high levels of concentration, hearing aids may have a detrimental effect on the perception of the sound environment. However, the results highlight the need for collective prevention. Consequently, workspace acoustics should be optimised, regardless of hearing status.