Rate of loudness growth for pure tones in normal and impaired hearing

A methodology for the estimation of individual loudness growth functions using tone-burst otoacoustic emissions (TBOAEs) and tone-burst auditory brainstem responses (TBABRs) was proposed by Silva and Epstein [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127, 3629-3642 (2010)]. This work attempted to investigate the application of such technique to the more challenging cases of hearing-impaired listeners. The specific aims of this study were to (1) verify the accuracy of this technique with eight hearing-impaired listeners for 1-and 4-kHz tone-burst stimuli, (2) investigate the effect of residual noise levels from the TBABRs on the quality of the loudness growth estimation, and (3) provide a public dataset of physiological and psychoacoustical responses to a wide range of stimuli intensity. The results show that some of the physiological loudness growth estimates were within the meansquare-error range for standard psychoacoustical procedures, with closer agreement at 1 kHz. The median residual noise in the TBABRs was found to be related to the performance of the estimation, with some listeners showing strong improvements in the estimated loudness growth function when controlling for noise levels. This suggests that future studies using evoked potentials to estimate loudness growth should control for the estimated averaged residual noise levels of the TBABRs.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Objective estimation of loudness growth in hearing-impaired listeners

Silva

Epstein

2012

“…Therefore, the impaired listeners were divided into five groups based on the overall configurations of their hearing losses as indicated by the listener IDs shown in the first column. ͑A sixth group of normal controls is shown at the bottom.͒ If the hearing loss increased more than 50 dB over any octave, it was characterized as an abrupt loss ͑listeners A1 and A2͒; such a steep loss is likely to indicate that inner-hair cells are missing or nonfunctional in some frequency region starting at the beginning of the slope ͑Hell-man and Meiselman, 1993;Florentine et al, 1997͒. If the hearing loss was not abrupt and decreased 15 dB or more over any two-octave interval, it was characterized as a rising loss ͑R1 to R3͒.…”

Section: Listenersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whereas considerable knowledge exists about the loudness of long-duration sounds in impaired listeners ͑for review, see Hellman and Meiselman, 1993;Moore, 1995;Moore and Glasberg, 1997͒, little is known about the loudness of brief sounds. Because most natural sounds are not steady state, but have amplitude peaks that typically are much shorter than the 50-150-ms integration time generally assumed for loudness ͑for review, see Scharf, 1978͒, knowledge of the loudness functions for brief sounds may be important for hearing-aid fitting and for general understanding of impaired listeners' auditory perception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal integration of loudness in listeners with hearing losses of primarily cochlear origin

Buus

Florentine

Poulsen

1999

To investigate how hearing loss of primarily cochlear origin affects the loudness of brief tones, loudness matches between 5-and 200-ms tones were obtained as a function of level for 15 listeners with cochlear impairments and for seven age-matched controls. Three frequencies, usually 0.5, 1, and 4 kHz, were tested in each listener using a two-interval, two-alternative forced-choice ͑2I, 2AFC͒ paradigm with a roving-level, up-down adaptive procedure. Results for the normal listeners generally were consistent with published data ͓e.g., Florentine et al., J. Acoust Soc. Am. 99, 1633-1644 ͑1996͔͒. The amount of temporal integration-defined as the level difference between equally loud short and long tones-varied nonmonotonically with level and was largest at moderate levels. No consistent effect of frequency was apparent. The impaired listeners varied widely, but most showed a clear effect of level on the amount of temporal integration. Overall, their results appear consistent with expectations based on knowledge of the general properties of their loudness-growth functions and the equal-loudness-ratio hypothesis, which states that the loudness ratio between equal-SPL long and brief tones is the same at all SPLs. The impaired listeners' amounts of temporal integration at high SPLs often were larger than normal, although it was reduced near threshold. When evaluated at equal SLs, the amount of temporal integration well above threshold usually was in the low end of the normal range. Two listeners with abrupt high-frequency hearing losses ͑slopes Ͼ50 dB/octave͒ showed larger-than-normal maximal amounts of temporal integration ͑40 to 50 dB͒. This finding is consistent with the shallow loudness functions predicted by our excitation-pattern model for impaired listeners ͓Florentine et al., in Modeling Sensorineural Hearing Loss, edited by W. Jesteadt ͑Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1997͒, pp. 187-198͔. Loudness functions derived from impaired listeners' temporal-integration functions indicate that restoration of loudness in listeners with cochlear hearing loss usually will require the same gain whether the sound is short or long.

“…For example, Heinz et al (2005) and Cai et al (2009) have suggested that changes occur in the auditory system beyond its periphery and that these more central changes are responsible for loudness recruitment. Regardless of its source, loudness recruitment can be examined through measures of loudness (Allen et al, 1990;Hellman and Meiselman, 1993;Buss et al, 1998). Hearing aids can be used to compensate for elevated thresholds, while also compressing the normal range of levels into the reduced dynamic range of patients with hearing loss.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reliability of distortion-product otoacoustic emissions and their relation to loudness

Thorson

Kopun

Neely

et al. 2012

The reliability of distortion-product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) measurements and their relation to loudness measurements was examined in 16 normal-hearing subjects and 58 subjects with hearing loss. The level of the distortion product (L d ) was compared across two sessions and resulted in correlations that exceeded 0.90. The reliability of DPOAEs was less when parameters from nonlinear fits to the input/output (I/O) functions were compared across visits. Next, the relationship between DPOAE I/O parameters and the slope of the low-level portion of the categorical loudness scaling (CLS) function (soft slope) was assessed. Correlations of 0.65, 0.74, and 0.81 at 1, 2, and 4 kHz were observed between CLS soft slope and combined DPOAE parameters. Behavioral threshold had correlations of 0.82, 0.83, and 0.88 at 1, 2, and 4 kHz with CLS soft slope. Combining DPOAEs and behavioral threshold provided little additional information. Lastly, a multivariate approach utilizing the entire DPOAE I/O function was used to predict the CLS rating for each input level (dB SPL). Standard error of the estimate when using this method ranged from 2.4 to 3.0 categorical units (CU), suggesting that DPOAE I/O functions can predict CLS measures within the CU step size used in this study (5).