A Quantitative Assessment of the Effects of Motivation on Autonomic Cardiorespiratory Activity in Challenging Listening Conditions

Among various cognitive factors that may influence the listening effort experienced by individuals under acoustically challenging conditions, motivation can play a key role in shaping effort allocation and engagement. In this study, we investigated the effect of motivation during a speech-in-noise recognition task by recording a multimodal set of self-reported, behavioural, and physiological measures from which it is possible to assess the impact of listening effort on our cardiovascular system as mediated by neural control from the autonomic nervous system. We manipulated motivational context through an evaluative threat manipulation combined with continuous visual feedback via an avatar, designed to simulate a form of human-machine interaction. The study involved 14 young normal-hearing participants. Statistical differences in autonomic activation, as reflected in volume amplitude and respiratory peak distance, were observed between the normal and the motivation condition. No significant difference in self-reported effort and behavioural features between conditions was observed. Further analysis involving additional physiological signals and experimental conditions in a larger sample of participants is needed to confirm these findings and explore more deeply the relationships between task difficulty, motivation, and individual characteristics.