It’s a task that can be made more challenging if you lose your hearing or your auditory processing doesn’t work optimally. All of this information is being sent to you, so it’s difficult for you to pick the bits of interest that are important. This can be confusing, but not meaningless.
The Central Auditory Cortex, Shepherd explains, is the “tuning in” center in the brain. People with hearing impairment have difficulty recognizing multiple signals at once, and their cortex has to work harder to distinguish the speech from the background.
Shepherd states that if you miss some speech cues it can make it difficult to “tune in” to what you are trying to understand. Your brain may be trying to determine whether “share” is pronounced “chair”, or not, but it’s also trying to understand what the other words mean.
Audio production can become very exhausting when there are backing tracks or contextual sounds. Shepherd says that many people with hearing loss find this level of concentration exhausting. These people end up tuning out the content.
A soundscape can be used to create rich audio dramas or high-quality content. What are the most valuable and what are hindering your progress?
Remember the context
Any information that provides context and familiarity, such as an accent or topic familiar to us, can help us better comprehend the content. Ward says, “You can create a mental model for your spouse’s voice so that you know what to do if they aren’t speaking in English.”
It is easier to understand speech if it’s familiar topics. However, listeners may find it difficult to follow a sudden change of subject matter. Listeners can be prompted to change the topic by cueing it in.
Ward says that this familiarity can also affect the producer. Ward says that a producer will likely have heard the content a million times before they produce it. If you are aware of what you should expect, it is possible to turn up the background and still hear the speech. Ask someone to read the script and then check that the background and foreground sound are in balance.
Regular listeners also get to know the voice of their host, as well as his speech patterns and production style. Podcasts that have a limited season could be simplified in sound design. Producers might speak slower and more clearly during the first episodes to make it easier for listeners to get used to them.
Always add transcripts
Many people who have hearing loss find that it’s easier to listen to audio content when there is a transcript file you can also follow. Shepherd says that having both the transcript and audio files working together “allows for a richer experience” because the audio context is still being used.
Any additional multimedia or visual content, such as images, videos, or graphs, can be very helpful. Ward says that it gives more context, and can help you understand speech better.
An AI transcription service can create audio transcripts very quickly. HappyScribe and Otter can transcribe your podcasts accurately, live or on-demand. And services like GoTranscript offer the accuracy of human transcription.
Ward demonstrates that accessibility should not be considered an afterthought, or part of the creative process. She says that while many things are simple to implement right away, they can be difficult to retro-engineer in a project. Many of these accessibility modifications are just best-practice items that can improve the audio experience for everyone.
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