Cognitive factors have been found to be critical in supporting Speech perception in noise (SPiN) performance, as they shape how listeners process, filter, and prioritize auditory information amidst competing signals. Fluid intelligence—the capacity to reason and solve novel problems—and interference control—the ability to suppress irrelevant information—have been shown to contribute to SPiN outcomes. We hypothesized that interference control might moderate the role of fluid intelligence in SPiN, such that strong interference control would reduce the dependency on fluid intelligence during challenging listening conditions.

In this study, we assessed SPiN performance in 181 individuals with hearing impairment. Participants completed the Hagerman test under challenging conditions, where sentences were presented alongside a four-talker babble noise masker while they used hearing aids with linear amplification. We analyzed the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) required for participants to correctly repeat 80% of the words. Cognitive measures included fluid intelligence, assessed through Raven’s Progressive Matrices, and interference control, measured as the sensitivity (A prime) in a Go/No-Go test. A linear regression model was used to examine the main effects of and interaction between fluid intelligence and interference control. Pure-tone average (PTA) was included as a control variable to account for hearing levels.

Our results indicate that both fluid intelligence and PTA significantly predicted SPiN performance, supporting the role of general cognitive ability and hearing acuity in challenging listening tasks. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, however, interference control did not show a main effect, nor did it interact with fluid intelligence to predict SPiN performance. Bayes factor analysis provided anecdotal evidence against including the interaction between fluid intelligence and interference control sensitivity in the predictive model, suggesting that this form of interference control does not moderate the relationship between fluid intelligence and SPiN under these specific high-cognitive-load conditions.

These findings indicate that while fluid intelligence is a valuable predictor of SPiN performance, interference control—at least as measured in our task—may not significantly influence SPiN outcomes in hearing-impaired hearing aid users under demanding noise conditions. We also found some evidence against the idea that interference control moderates the role of fluid intelligence in SPiN. Further research could explore alternative measures of interference control to clarify its role in SPiN and identify cognitive profiles that may require special attention in auditory support.