The cognitive resources needed to process an auditory message. The more difficult the background noise or degraded audio, the more effort a person needs to expend to listen. A person might say they are tired of listening – known as listening fatigue.
Definition #2. The resources or energy necessary or used by a listener in real time to meet the cognitive demand needed to understand when people are speaking. (NASEM, Measuring Meaningful Outcomes for Adult
Hearing Health Interventions, 2025)