San Diego County Fair Hearing Survey

Abstract

A recorded hearing test similar in part to the Bell Telephone Laboratory's World's Fair Test was given at the San Diego County Fair. In addition to the absolute pure tone thresholds for the five-octave frequencies 440 c.p.s. through 7040 c.p.s. a white noise masking threshold was found for 880 c.p.s. and 3520 c.p.s. A report was made by each of the approximately 3700 participants as to age (within 10 year groupings), sex, musical training, noise environment, and known hearing difficulty. Statistical breakdown of hearing losses as a function of sex and age agreed in general with the earlier study. Functional relationships indicate that (a) musical training was negatively related to hearing loss especially with the older age groups, (b) noise environment was positively related to hearing loss at 3520 c.p.s. for males and (c) declared (known) hearing difficulties correlate with actual hearing losses. Masked thresholds, in general, show trends similar to those of the absolute thresholds in relationship to the above factors. However, these trends are not as pronounced as those shown by the absolute thresholds. Subsequent analyses and work on masked and absolute thresholds on naval recruits will supplement these results.