Abstract
An interdisciplinary research team at the Pennsylvania State University examined the effects of long duration (16 hours), continuous exposure to an 85 dBA broad band noise in human subjects. Both noise exposure and control (without noise) experiments were completed. The test battery included measurements of blood hormone (cortisol) levels, temporary hearing threshold shift (TTS), loudness discrimination index (LDI) and level of initial masking (LIM). Blood samples were collected in heparinized tubes, centrifuged and the plasma samples were analyzed for circulating levels of cortisol using a solid phase radioimmunoassay procedure. In the audiometric tests, the performance changes for the tasks of threshold sensitivity (TTS) identification of small increments in a tonal stimulus (LDI) and recognition of a tonal stimulus in a frequency-varying tonal masker (LIM) were examined by comparing test results before and after the experimental condition (either 85 dBA noise or low level ambient sound, for 16 h). The results of the investigation are discussed with particular attention to the effectiveness of the test battery in characterizing the effects of the noise and to the elucidation physiological correlates that may underlie certain audiometric phenomena that follow noise exposure. [This project was funded, in part, by a Rockefeller Foundation Grant-in-aid.]
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