부산대학교 도서관

Background and Objectives Several studies have proven that listening efforts cause neu-roanatomical and physiological changes in the frontal lobe in adults with hearing loss as wellas in the elderly with normal hearing. However, there is still a lack in research into how brainfunction changes when the cognitive load is increased based on noise level. We conducted apreliminary study using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to determine differences in lis-tening effort according to varying listening conditions. Subjects and Method Five adults with normal hearing participated in the study. Listeningeffort was measured in three listening environments (resting, quiet, and noise) using NIRSITLite (OBELAB, Seoul, Korea). The measures variables were concentration changes in oxy-genated hemoglobin (ΔHbO2) and the percent correct response rate. Results As a result of ΔHbO2, channels 1 ( p=0.045), 5 ( p=0.042) and 7 ( p=0.033) (rightchannels) showed significantly higher ΔHbO2 in the noise condition than in the resting condi-tion. In addition, in channel 1, ΔHbO2 was significantly higher even in the quiet condition thanin the resting condition ( p=0.041). The percent correct response rate was significantly de-creased in the noise condition (35.6%) as compared to the quiet condition (64.4%) ( p=0.024). Conclusion We observed that a decrease in cerebral localization to compensate through theright hemisphere was presented with increased listening effort. The results of the study willbe useful in situations where listening effort need to be accurarely measured.