ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1691731
Midlife Challenges in Speech in Spatial Noise Perception Explored through Virtual Reality Simulations of Reverberant Environments
Provisionally accepted
- 1All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore, India
- 2All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru, India
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate speech recognition in simulated virtual reality–based reverberant environments, with specific attention to the effects of age and noise location. Such simulations provide an ecologically valid framework for examining auditory processing challenges that are critical for advancing early hearing health interventions. This study compared speech recognition in virtual reverberant and spatial noise conditions between young and middle-aged adults, addressing a critical gap in detecting spatial-related decline that precede age-related shifts in audiometric thresholds. Thirty young (18–40 years, M = 25.19, SD = 5.23) and 30 middle-aged (41–60 years, M = 55.79, SD = 4.57) adults with normal hearing performed sentence recognition in virtually synthesized acoustic simulations featuring three reverberation levels (anechoic, short and long), and three noise locations (0°, 60° right and 60° left) where sentences emerged from 0°. Results of generalized linear mixed model revealed middle-aged participants exhibited significantly poorer sentence recognition scores compared to young adults. Spatial release from masking was observed for both the groups spatial segregated noise under the anechoic and short reverberation condition, but not under the long reverberation condition for middle aged adults. Findings revealed that spatial deficits in noisy environments begin to emerge in middle age, especially when challenging situations such as reverberation are simulated.
Keywords: spatial release from masking, reverberation, Speech Perception, age, virtual reality
Received: 24 Aug 2025; Accepted: 08 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Harshada, Nambi and Nisha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mali Harshada, harshada17.aiish@gmail.com
KV Nisha, nishakv@aiishmysore.in
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