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Sudden Auditory Degradation Elicits Increased Auditory–Frontal Connectivity During Emotional Speech Perception

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Katya Tikhostoup¹ (), Carmen Dang, Frank Russo; ¹Toronto Metropolitan University

Previous research has shown that older adults with hearing loss are less accurate in the recognition of affective auditory stimuli than those with normal hearing. Some studies have also found that these drops in accuracy are accompanied by task-based increases in fronto-temporal connectivity. However, it is unclear whether this increased connectivity only arises following years of hearing loss or whether it may arise suddenly following signal degradation. Using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), the present study investigated the effect of sudden simulated hearing loss in normal hearing young adults. Forty-five participants listened to emotional speech in multitalker babble and judged the expressed emotion. Half of the participants heard the original, unaltered stimuli (NH), while the other half heard stimuli that were modified to simulate hearing loss (SHL). Compared to NH, SHL had worse task performance and increased connectivity between superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). One interpretation of this difference in connectivity is that the IFG of participants with SHL may have been differentially recruited to support the “filling-in” of missing detail that would support emotion recognition. These findings indicate that neural signatures commonly attributed to long-term hearing loss can emerge immediately following signal degradation.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Audition