VOICE: Make your VOICE heard
VOICE is a citizen involvement organisation, network and digital platform. It uses the experience, ideas and insights of people to ensure that research and innovation focus' on the real needs and priorities of real people.
What is VOICE?
VOICE is a citizen-involvement organisation, network and digital platform. It uses the experience, ideas and insights of people to ensure that research and innovation focus on the needs and priorities of real people.
Embedded in The UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing, VOICE also works with businesses from concept to market. It identifies unmet needs and co-designs new, desirable products and services to support healthy, long lives.
What volunteering activity can I undertake with them?
VOICE is a platform where researchers can post opportunities for members to engage. From events through to public representation, there are a number of ways for you to get involved in helping to progress ageing research.
You can take part in as much or as little as you like, remotely or in person. It can fit in with your interests and schedule. Best of all, it’s free of charge to join the network.
What can I currently get involved with?
There are opportunities from institutions across the UK including:
- Improving mental wellbeing for people newly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, at Bournemouth University
- Early diagnosis of head and neck cancer – what helps and hinders?, at Newcastle University
A few current opportunities are highlighted below:
Concentration difficulties in everyday life
About the study
The purpose of this study is to improve understanding of concentration difficulties and how they affect people in their everyday lives. More specifically, the study is examining the relationship between concentration difficulties, sleep difficulties and aspects of daily functioning, including socialising and loneliness in adults.
The hope is that this research will benefit people experiencing concentration difficulties in the longer-term. Firstly, it may contribute towards increasing the availability of helpful sleep interventions which reduce daytime tiredness for people reporting poor concentration and problems with daily functioning. Secondly, it may lead to adapted strategies to help people meet their social goals. Finally, it may provide further insight into how concentration difficulties may influence the way people react to uncertainty and anxiety/worry.
A donation will be made to Mind, a charity supporting people with mental health difficulties, on behalf of all participants.
Who is eligible to take part in the study?
Participation is open to anyone aged 18 or over, regardless of whether you experience concentration difficulties.
Further information
Pam Boullin and Georgia Mooney (Trainee Clinical Psychologists at Newcastle University, employed by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust) are carrying out this research.
Professor Mark Freeston, Newcastle University, is supervising this project.
The deadline to register your interest is Sunday 1 June 2025.
Cognitive determinants of real-world listening-related effort
About this study
The purpose of this study is to learn more about how hearing and auditory processes are related to memory, thinking abilities, and cognition. More specifically, we aim to identify predictors of speech-in-noise perception. In noisy environments, we often exert effort to maintain a conversation, a phenomenon known as listening effort. This study seeks to understand the potential cognitive mechanisms underlying listening-related effort.
Difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments is a common complaint among those attending auditory clinics, particularly as we age, even when hearing is considered normal. This issue can lead to a lower quality of life, social isolation, and other challenges. By understanding what determines our ability to extract speech from a noisy background, we can work toward finding solutions to this widespread problem.
What will happen if I take part?
You will be invited to a 2-hour study which will take place in the Auditory Laboratory at Newcastle University in The Medical School, Framlington Place, NE2 4HH. A researcher working on the project will welcome you, explain the exact procedures of the study, and will answer any questions you may have. You will perform auditory tests and different memory or cognitive tests. Some of these tests are performed with a computer and headphones in a sound-proof room, others will be administered by us, the researchers. Tests are mostly short, lasting around 10 minutes each, and you will have opportunity to take breaks between each test.
After the study, we will compensate you with a £20 Amazon voucher for your time.
What are these auditory and cognitive tests?
You will be asked to do what are called cognitive tests. They will involve you listening to auditory (e.g. tones) or verbal (e.g. words, sentences) material. For example, you will hear a word spoken amongst background noise, as might be the case in a noisy coffee place. Then, you will have to report what word you heard. For other tests we will ask you to remember and then recall information, or detect patterns.
All tasks are designed to be as straight-forward as possible, and will contain no distressing material. These tasks might get a bit challenging at times, but will be for the most part easy to complete. The entire battery of tasks will last approximately 2 hours and you will have the opportunity to take breaks during this time as you desire.
Are there inclusion criteria?
Please note our inclusion criteria listed below:
- You are aged 30-65
- You are a native English speaker
- You can read the screen from 0.5 meters away from the computer without glasses (this is required for the eye tracker).
- You have no history of diagnosed hearing disorders (e.g. you have no worse than mild hearing loss, tinnitus).
- You have no history of diagnosed cognitive disorders.
- You are not currently taking any psychotropic drugs.
Closing date and time: Monday 30 June 2025, 17:00
Seven days of auditory training to improve daily life speech-in-noise perception
About this study
The purpose of this study is to determine if training auditory sound discrimination abilities, such as identifying subtle differences in sounds, can improve speech in noise perception.
Understanding speech in noisy environments can be challenging for many individuals. Even a significant portion of normal-hearing listeners may experience difficulty in adverse listening conditions. In this study, we aim to develop a training programme that could help individuals seeking solutions for speech comprehension difficulties in such environments.
What will happen if I take part?
Part 1
You will be invited to the Auditory Cognition lab on the ground floor of the Newcastle Medical School, where you will be required to take some tests and bring a personal device (e.g. laptop).
Firstly, you will be asked to take a hearing test. You will then be asked to take a behavioural test, where there will be 4 computerised tasks with different sounds. Two of these tasks will also include the use of an eye tracker. An eye tracker is a device that allows us to monitor your eye responses to the sounds being played. The entire experiment should take about 2 hours.
Following this, the researchers will help you download the training software onto your device, as this is what you will be using each day for 20 minutes for the next week to complete the training programme. This will include a behavioural test, where there will be 2 computerised tasks with different sounds. We do highly advise that training should be completed in an environment with minimal distraction and noise to ensure optimum attention is directed toward the tasks.
Part 2
After the week of training, you will be invited back to the Auditory Cognition Lab, where you will repeat the same set of tests completed during the initial visit. Once all stages are completed in full (baseline test / training / outcome test) you will be given £50 amazon voucher. Additionally, a £1 bonus will be awarded for each day performance was of a high standard during your training.
Are there any inclusion criteria?
Please note our inclusion criteria listed below:
- You are aged 18-70
- You are a native English speaker
- You have a Windows laptop that you can bring to the first session to install the training app we developed.
- You can read the screen from 0.5 meters away from the computer without glasses (this is required for the eye tracker).
- You have no history of diagnosed hearing disorders (e.g. you have no worse than mild hearing loss, tinnitus).
- You have no history of diagnosed cognitive disorders.
- You are not currently taking any psychotropic drugs.
Closing date and time: Thursday 31 July 2025, 17:00