The effects of high intensity pure tone on visual field, eye fixation, pupil size, and visual false positive and negative errors

Abstract

Our aim in this study is to evaluate the effects of pure tone on visual field, pupil size, eye fixation, and visual false positive and negative errors. Thirty-two young adult subjects with normal hearing and normal visual acuity were tested in this study. Measurements were performed over two test sessions. In one session visual factors were measured in quiet, and another measurement was performed during presenting a pure tone (1000 Hz, 100-dB HL) binaurally via a headphone. The statistical program SPSS10 was used for all analyses. Fixation loss was significantly lower (better) in quiet condition compared with continuous pure tone condition, and other visual factors had no significant differences in the two conditions. As a conclusion it can be stated that changes in attentional focus which result from altered levels of arousal or autonomic system activity during presenting a high intensity pure tone affect on fixation of the eye. However, it is suggested that these effects are possibly related to stress caused by sound masking the hearing of speech and other wanted environmental sounds, and not from some direct autonomic system arousal by sound.