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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

I am going to venture and say this is not related to the ear apparatus, but in perception processing. I believe this type of deficit has been associated with ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders/variations.

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As someone with attention issues, I've wondered if this contributes to my issues in loud environments. I feel like it's a blend of "your brain is being overwhelmed" and "this place actually sucks for everyone".

Yes. Hearing voices in a loud environment means turning the gain down on other sounds and amping the gain on the voices, but if your attention system can less efficiently choose or if your top-down inhibitory systems are inefficient, then comprehension will be difficult.

AFAIK I don't have any hearing loss. I wouldn't say that I have attention issues but I can't stand distracting environments - I enjoy loud music if it's a concert and that's what I'm there for, but otherwise I can't stand it.

I agree with your assessment. I pretty much don't go to bars because of the suckiness. You can't have a worthwhile conversation, so it's just constant drinking in an oppressive environment.

I actually do have ADHD as well, and this was something that the doctors talked about. They told me that my hearing impairment would make it even more difficult to focus paired with the audio processing issues from ADHD.

That said, even in a quiet setting I have trouble understanding someone if I can't see their face/read their lips.

This. I have fantastic hearing, but I really struggle with this sort of thing due to differences in perception.

It's both. Google on "hidden hearing loss", "cochlear synaptopathy", "central processing disorders", "auditory scene analysis" and "the cocktail party problem".

I'm sure that it could exacerbate things, but in my particular case if you graph my hearing response to various frequencies it looks like a valley or a capital V.

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