Comparison of Oldenburg matrix test results in laboratory and a remote testing applification

The relevance of remote testing in audiology and acoustics is increasing, particularly due to the need for large datasets and ecological validity. The Virtual Hearing Clinic (VHC) is being developed as a platform to facilitate such large-scale online studies in audiological and acoustic research. This study aims to investigate the impact of using individual, uncalibrated hardware in remote testing in an unknown testing environment on the results of the Oldenburg Matrix Test. To this end, the Oldenburg Matrix Test was conducted in a pilot study with 10 otologically normal-hearing participants in a randomized order, once in the lab and once using the participants’ mobile devices and headphones via the VHC outside of the lab, with an additional retest for the VHC measurement. Preliminary results show a test–retest correlation of r = 0.58 for the two VHC measurements. There is a deterioration in speech intelligibility scores of 2.70 dB from lab to VHC measurements. This difference appears to be a fairly constant offset with a standard deviation of 1.10 dB, indicating good validity for the remote testing approach via the VHC. However, the participant pool needs to be expanded both in number and in the range of different hearing impairments.