The study will investigate whether choir participation and musical training can improve three aspects of auditory processing in hearing aided older adults: perception of speech in noise, pitch discrimination, and the neural response to brief auditory stimuli (frequency following response; FFR). Sixty older adults with hearing aids will be recruited from the Greater Toronto Area through flyers in Connect Hearing Clinics and Ryerson's 50+ Program Bulletin, as well as through an ad in the Toronto Star, which will provide contact information for the Science of Music, Auditory Research and Technology (SMART) Laboratory. Anyone who contacts the SMART Lab with an interest in participating will be administered a pre-screening questionnaire over the phone by a study researcher; this may also be administered by email depending on participant preference. Those who are eligible and give informed consent will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: a choir singing class (n=20), a music appreciation class (n=20), or a do-nothing control condition (n=20). Each choir participant will come into the SMART Laboratory for two pre-training assessments that will take approximately 1.5 hours each, during which time they will complete several questionnaires and assessments of auditory abilities (including pitch discrimination and speech perception in noise), and undergo an electroencephalograph (EEG) during presentation of repeated auditory stimuli (obtaining the FFR). Choir participants will then take part in weekly two-hour group choral sessions over the course of fourteen weeks, during which time they will receive pitch training and vocal direction in an open and encouraging environment. In addition to the weekly group choir sessions, participants will be offered optional individual online musical and vocal training exercises (up to one hour weekly), designed to target and improve the participants' abilities to perceive and produce small changes in pitch. After fourteen weeks of choir participation and musical training, each choir participant will return to the SMART Lab for two post-training assessments that will last approximately 1.5 hours each. During post-training data collection sessions, participants will complete different versions of the pre-training auditory assessments, and undergo a post-training EEG. Participants assigned to the music appreciation class will take part in a fourteen week course which will emphasize analytic listening to musical excerpts, which will match the choir class in terms of duration, homework demands, and instructor - both classes will be taught by the same person. The do-nothing control group will undergo the same battery of pre- and post-testing, with fourteen weeks between data collection sessions, but will not receive any active training during this time. All participants in the music appreciation class and the do-nothing control group will be offered the opportunity to take part in the choir at a later date. It is hypothesized that musical training - in particular, group singing practice - will result in improved outcomes of auditory perceptual measures in hearing-aided older adults. It is predicted that individuals who take part in 14 weeks of group choral singing will demonstrate improvements across all auditory measures, including improved pitch discrimination, enhanced ability to perceive speech in noisy environments, and higher fidelity and more consistent neural responses to brief auditory stimuli (as indexed by features of the FFR). It is predicted that participants in the music appreciation class may demonstrate auditory improvements as a result of their focus on music perception, but that these improvements will not be as significant as those of the choir participants. It is further predicted that both training groups will outperform the do-nothing control group on post-training measures.
