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Listening Effort and Gaze Strategies During Audiovisual Speech Perception

Award Number: R21DC021495
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 12/04/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 11/30/2026

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Listening Effort and Gaze Strategies During Audiovisual Speech Perception - PROJECT SUMMARY Listening effort and fatigue have serious impacts on quality of life for individuals with hearing loss. As the clinical importance of listening effort becomes more widely acknowledged, there is an increased urgency to improve our understanding of effort and fatigue in contexts relevant to real-world communication. One factor that has the potential to alleviate effort and fatigue in everyday listening is the ability to see a conversation partner’s face. While visual speech cues are known to improve speech intelligibility — particularly for listeners with hearing loss — the link between visual speech and listening effort has not been established. Translating the perceptual benefits of seeing a talker’s face to real listening further hinges on moving beyond video-based, non-interactive contexts and investigating how listeners use visual speech cues during social communication. The goals of this project are twofold. First, we will determine how and when seeing a talker’s face alleviates effort and fatigue for listeners with cochlear implants (CIs), focusing on cognitively and perceptually demanding listening scenarios. Second, we will examine eye gaze behavior during live conversations: how social interaction changes where on the face listeners tend to look, how these patterns differ for listeners with CIs (who likely rely more on visual cues from the talker’s mouth), and how individual differences in gaze behavior relate to the effort of speech perception during conversation. Results will improve our understanding of audiovisual speech perception and effort during natural communication, laying the groundwork for future studies on how listeners with CIs use visual speech to improve the perception of prosody and track multi-talker conversations. This work will inform the development of diagnostic testing to assess multisensory speech perception, as well as rehabilitation strategies to maximize audiovisual benefits for individuals with hearing and/or vision loss.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $174,107 )
2026	2026	REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA	2221 UNIVERSITY AVE SE STE 100	MINNEAPOLIS	MN	55414	HENNEPIN	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	3	12/10/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$174,107
														Subtotal = $174,107

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $193,452 )
2025	2025	REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA	2221 UNIVERSITY AVE SE STE 100	MINNEAPOLIS	MN	55414	HENNEPIN	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	2	4/29/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$19,345
2025	2025	REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA	200 OAK ST SE	MINNEAPOLIS	MN	55455	HENNEPIN	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	11/27/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$174,107
														Subtotal = $193,452

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $193,452 )
2024	2024	REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA	200 OAK ST SE	MINNEAPOLIS	MN	55455	HENNEPIN	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	1	12/4/2023	NEW	$193,452
														Subtotal = $193,452

Grand Total All Awards = $561,011

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Listening Effort and Gaze Strategies During Audiovisual Speech Perception

Award Number: R21DC021495

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 12/04/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 11/30/2026

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