Auditory processing in normally hearing individuals with and without tinnitus: assessment with four psychoacoustic tests

Danuta Raj-Koziak,Justyna Kutyba,Lucyna Karpiesz,Henryk Skarzynski,Piotr H Skarzynski,Elżbieta Gos,Agata Szkiełkowska,Aleksandra Panasiewicz

doi:10.1007/s00405-021-07023-w

Danuta Raj-Koziak, Justyna Kutyba + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-07023-w

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Abstract

PurposeIn most cases, tinnitus co-exists with hearing loss, suggesting that poorer speech understanding is simply due to a lack of acoustic information reaching the central nervous system (CNS). However, it also happens that patients with tinnitus who have normal hearing also report problems with speech understanding, and it is possible to suppose that tinnitus is to blame for difficulties in perceptual processing of auditory information. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the auditory processing abilities of normally hearing subjects with and without tinnitus.MethodsThe study group comprised 97 adults, 54 of whom had normal hearing and chronic tinnitus (the study group) and 43 who had normal hearing and no tinnitus (the control group). The audiological assessment comprised pure-tone audiometry and high-frequency pure-tone audiometry, impedance audiometry, and distortion product oto-acoustic emission assessment. To evaluate possible auditory processing deficits, the Frequency Pattern Test (FPT), Duration Pattern Test (DPT), Dichotic Listening Test (DLT), and Gap Detection Threshold (GDT) tests were performed.ResultsThe tinnitus subjects had significantly lower scores than the controls in the gap detection test (p < 0.01) and in the dichotic listening test (p < 0.001), but only for the right ear. The results for both groups were similar in the temporal ordering tests (FPT and DPT). Right-ear advantage (REA) was found for the controls, but not for the tinnitus subjects.ConclusionIn normally hearing patients, the presence of tinnitus may be accompanied with auditory processing difficulties.

Highlights

Tinnitus is the perception of a sound without any external source
Normally hearing subjects with tinnitus often complain of difficulty in understanding speech, especially when there is a background noise, and they sometimes blame their tinnitus for the difficulty
speech-in-noise reception (SRT) scores were significantly worse in tinnitus subjects, they did not find any differences between the groups in terms of spectral or temporal ability [6]

Summary

Introduction

Communication between people is disturbed by noise, which makes for poorer speech understanding. Normally hearing subjects with tinnitus often complain of difficulty in understanding speech, especially when there is a background noise, and they sometimes blame their tinnitus for the difficulty. Some authors have confirmed that, in the presence of background noise, normally hearing tinnitus subjects have reduced speech perception skill compared with controls [4], findings in line with earlier work by Huang [5]. Moon et al compared speech-in-noise reception (SRT), as well as spectral and temporal resolution, in tinnitus subjects and in a control group. The results to date suggest that speech understanding in people with tinnitus is worse than those without the condition

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