Pupil size helps hearing aid development

Hearing aid manufacturer Oticon has used measurements of pupil dilation in the development of new technology that reduces listening effort and cognitive energy so patients are able recall more of what they've heard.

In a study, researchers at Eriksholm Research Centre and the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam looked at how hard the brain had to work to understand speech in different environments and how that knowledge could be used in new hearing devices.

‘When we pay attention to sound, the muscles in the eyes contract and release based on listening effort,’ said Thomas Behrens, head of audiology and director for the Centre for Applied Audiology Research at Oticon. ‘In our research, we showed how pupillometry could be used to measure strain on the brain’s processing power when trying to understand speech.’