No significant effects of either sleep quality or digital addiction on listening effort were found in healthy young adults under controlled conditions, suggesting that listening effort may be resilient to variations in these variables.
Key Findings
Results
No significant differences in listening effort were detected between Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) groups based on reaction time or error rate dual-task effects.
Listening effort was assessed via a dual-task paradigm in which repeating an auditorily presented sentence was the primary task and a modified Stop Signal Task was the secondary task.
Sleep quality was evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), with participants grouped by PSQI scores.
Neither the reaction time dual-task effect (RT-DTE) nor the error rate dual-task effect (ER-DTE) differed significantly between PSQI groups.
No significant relationship was detected between continuous PSQI scores and either the RT-DTE or the ER-DTE.
Results
No significant correlation was found between digital addiction scores and listening effort measures.
Digital addiction was assessed using the Digital Addiction Scale (DAS).
Neither RT-DTE nor ER-DTE showed a significant correlation with DAS scores.
This study is described as the first to explore listening effort in relation to digital addiction.
Background
This study is the first to explore listening effort in relation to both sleep quality and digital addiction.
The dual-task paradigm used combined a speech repetition primary task with a modified Stop Signal Task as the secondary task.
The study was conducted in healthy young adults under controlled conditions.
The authors note that further studies with more comprehensive designs are needed to clarify these relationships.
Discussion
The findings suggest that listening effort may be resilient to variations in sleep quality and digital addiction in healthy young adults.
Results showed no significant effects of either sleep quality or digital addiction on listening effort.
The authors suggest that other cognitive or auditory factors may play a more critical role in listening effort than sleep quality or digital addiction.
The study population was limited to healthy young adults, which may limit generalizability to other populations.
What This Means
This research suggests that how hard people have to work to understand speech — referred to as 'listening effort' — is not meaningfully affected by how well they sleep or how addicted they are to digital devices, at least in healthy young adults. The researchers measured listening effort using a dual-task test where participants had to repeat sentences they heard while also performing a reaction-time task. They found that people with poor sleep quality (measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) performed similarly to those with good sleep quality, and people with higher digital addiction scores performed similarly to those with lower scores.
This study is notable because it is the first to examine these specific relationships. The lack of significant findings suggests that, under controlled conditions, young healthy adults may be able to maintain consistent listening effort regardless of their sleep habits or screen time behaviors. The authors propose that other factors — such as underlying cognitive abilities or hearing function — may be more important drivers of listening effort.
However, the results should be interpreted with caution. The study was conducted in healthy young adults, who may be more resilient to the effects of poor sleep or digital overuse than older adults or people with hearing difficulties. The authors call for future studies with broader designs, including more diverse populations or real-world listening conditions, to better understand when and for whom sleep quality and digital habits might affect the ability to follow and understand speech.
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Baş B, Biber E, Akdemir G. (2026). Listening Effort, Sleep Quality, and Digital Addiction: Exploring Their Links.. Brain and behavior. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.71539