Rationale: Conversation success is a multifaceted concept. Previous work showed that people with normal and impaired hearing identified seven clusters that drive conversation success: (1) Being able to listen easily; (2) Being spoken to in a helpful way; (3) Being engaged and accepted; (4) Sharing information as desired; (5) Perceiving flowing and balanced interaction; (6) Feeling positive emotions; (7) Not having to engage coping mechanisms. However, how conversation success is perceived during real-life interactions is unclear.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the perception of success in group conversations and how it changes in different noise environments for people with normal and impaired hearing.

Design: 15 mixed gender quartets (N = 60) composed of two participants with normal hearing and two participants with impaired hearing held six conversations in low, medium, and high levels of background noise. Participants with impaired hearing wore their hearing aids binaurally and were unaided in half of the conversations. During the conversations, audio, visual, and head motion data were recorded in synchrony with continuous participant feedback. A survey based on the aforementioned seven clusters of conversation success was completed between each condition.

Results: Preliminary results of participants’ perceived success and their speech amplitude variability will be reported.