Hearing, Listening, and Understanding

An empathy exercise

A traditional Korean folktale mask. Image credit Colleen Farris

In my Learning Technology through Design course, we are exploring empathy as the first step in the Stanford d.school design process. To develop our understanding of empathy, we were challenged to modify our perception of the world in some way. I chose to try understanding a conversation as someone experiencing a range of hearing acuity levels, from normal to severe hearing loss. 

Using the Starkey Hearing Loss Simulator website, I listened to a child share the story of her day with her grandfather. Beginning at a moderate level of hearing loss, the muffling of the sounds accompanied by a hum between and underneath the spoken words made listening uncomfortable. It required energy and attention to understand. Despite this interference, I was able to discern the meaning of every word on the first hearing. Although, the word “media” did take me a moment to process. 

The dialog was quick, so I listened to it several times to transcribe the entire conversation. Repeated listening to the moderate hearing loss sample heightened the feeling that my ear drums were being boxed. It was tiring to mentally sift the words from the echoing bass notes. When I selected the same audio sample at a mild level of hearing loss, the hum described above remained, but the muffling of the words was reduced along with the discomfort and energy expenditure caused by it. By contrast, the normal hearing level sample was sharp, clear, and easy to listen to and understand.  

I was surprised to realize that what was lacking in the moderate and mild audio samples was the treble frequency sounds. I was also surprised to realize that the main difference between my experiences of the three samples was not understanding the words, as I expected, rather it was the effort required to engage in the act of listening and process the sounds of a conversation. 

The Starkey website also provides a transcript of the same conversation at normal, mild, moderate, and severe levels of hearing loss. The transcripts reveal the actual word sounds that are affected at each level. At the mild level, the sounds of the letters and letter combinations ‘f,’ ‘s,’ and ‘th’ are muted. At the moderate level, the sounds of the letters and letter combinations of ‘g,’ ‘p,’ ‘sh,’ ‘st,’ ‘sch,’ and ‘t’ are diminished as well.  

At the severe level, no discernible sounds could be heard. The transcript reveals that most consonants are suppressed, leaving ‘b,’ ‘c,’ ‘l,’ ‘e,’ ‘h,’ ‘k,’ ‘o,’ ‘u,’ ‘w,’ and ‘y.’ With about two thirds of the alphabet missing it would be almost impossible to pick out words, although clues about the missing sounds could be gained if the listener could see the formation of the speaker’s lips. 

Recently, I suffered from a dual infection of Covid and RSV. One of the symptoms was extremely clogged ears, which continued after I was no longer contagious. When I returned to work, I found myself losing patience when trying to listen with background noise. Listening to a student tell me something, with only one or two students talking quietly in the background, was difficult. Yet, I did not connect the experience of getting over respiratory infections with my understanding of hearing loss until I engaged in this empathy-building activity.  

This exercise recalibrated my understanding of the empathy step in design. I thought that my own ability to hear and understand meant that I could imagine what it would be like to experience hearing loss. I imagined that the major barrier would be understanding the words, not the added stress and cognitive workload required. It is good to be reminded of the limits of my imagination to help me understand the experiences of others.

The deliberate practice of empathy is a powerful tool to reveal gaps and disconnects in our feelings and our knowledge. I am prepared to be continually surprised at what I learn as I begin to move outside of my own understandings and perceptions to engage in empathy.