Study could help create better hearing aids and more accessible public spaces

Scientists have found that people remain engaged with stories even in noisy environments—a discovery that could pave the way for more effective hearing aids and better designed public spaces. Psychologist Dr. Aysha Motala of the University of Stiring’s Faculty of Natural Sciences was co-first author on a new study published in eNeuro that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of participants’ brains to examine how brain activity changes when listening to engaging stories in background chatter.

It found that, as the noise increased, brain activity in auditory areas became more unique to each person, while regions in the cingulo-opercular network—the area involved in attention and mental effort—showed more similar patterns across listeners.

A large number of brain regions in the frontal, parietal, and medial cortices responded strongly when one part of the story ended and another began, and this effect remained stable even with moderate noise.

The research team now hope that this could lead to improvements in assistive listening technology, with most existing neuroscience taking place in ideal listening environments.

Dr. Motala explained, “Our findings help to clarify how the brain adapts to real-world noise. This has practical implications for society as understanding how listeners maintain narrative comprehension in noisy settings can inform the design of hearing aids and assistive listening devices.

“With these insights there can be a new focus on designing devices that better support higher-level comprehension rather than focusing solely on acoustic clarity.

“Beyond health care, the findings can inform the design of public spaces, educational environments, virtual communication platforms and audio technologies to reduce cognitive load and improve intelligibility in noisy conditions.”

The findings revealed distinct neural systems involved in naturalistic speech listening and suggest that people continue to make sense of stories, even when words are partly masked by background sounds. This was despite the cingulo-opercular network becoming more active in similar ways across those involved in the study.

Crucially, regions of the brain that help us follow the structure and meaning of a story keep working even in noisy environments, meaning that, while background noise makes listening require more effort, it doesn’t stop us from remaining engaged or understanding the overall story.

Dr. Motala added, “Ultimately, this research helps bridge laboratory neuroscience with everyday listening challenges, supporting technologies and policies that make communication more accessible and cognitively sustainable.”