MEASUREMENT OF HEARING BY MEANS OF CONDITIONED BLINKING RESPONSE

Abstract

To evaluate the clinical use of hearing measurement by means of Pavlovian conditioned response, the establishment of conditioned blinking response and its application to the hearing test were studied. For the conditioning, the speed flash and lantern slides with speed flash were used as optic unconditinned stimuli, and pure tone of 1, 000cps (30-50db) was selected as auditory conditioned stimulus. After the completion of the conditioning, the threshold of hearing was measured about 3 pure tones of 500cps, 1, 000cps and 4, 000cps.A. The following are the results of the conditioning from 85 examinees.1. The above-mentioned method of conditioning spent time comparatively.2. It was difficult to develop this conditioning among the children under 55year of age.3. The conditioning was established in about 80per cent of examinees, and this rate of establishment was maximum of this conditioning.B. The results of the comparison of pure-tone thresholds measured by means of conditioned blinking response and by routine subjective methods were as follows: Those who showed the difference of less than ±10db between the results by these two methods were 92, 9per cent of 57 examinees. Those who showed the difference of less than ±5db between the results by these two methods were 63.0per cent; and those who showed the identical data by either methods were 47.2per cent.From these results, the measurement of hearing by the above-mentioned method is considered to be satisfactory, when it is applied for the examinees having established the conditioned response.