Abstract:
The primary objective of this study was to investigate visual cognition in mildmoderate hearing loss with an onset in adulthood. To examine this, the study was conducted in two parts. The first part investigated visual cognition performance using a single task paradigm. This required participants to perform three different visual cognitive tasks. The second part of the study investigated visual cognition using a dual-task paradigm which required participants to perform visual cognitive tasks whilst simultaneously performing an auditory speech recognition task. The dual-task was performed twice: once without background noise and again with background noise. Twenty-two participants were involved in the first part of the study whilst twenty participants were included in the second part of the analysis. Results were analysed using least square linear regression and any follow-up analyses were analysed using multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Results for the first part of the study found that hearing thresholds did not affect basic processing or low-level attention. However, individuals with hearing loss had greater error rates on a visual task which required top-down attention modulation. The results for the second part of the study revealed that when the dual-task was performed without background noise, results resembled the first part of the study where poorer performance was associated with poorer hearing thresholds when top-down attention modulation was required. When the dual-task was performed with background noise, no associations with hearing thresholds were found. It was concluded that visual processing does not change at a sensory level with hearing loss and that changes observed were a reflection of poor executive functioning often observed as a consequence of auditory deprivation in hearing loss observed in adulthood.