Verification of a Mobile Psychoacoustic Test System.

Jordana C Soares,Winnie Ly,Sangamanatha A Veeranna,Prudence Allen,Sheila Moodie,Paula Folkeard,Vijay Parsa,Minh Duong,Chris Allan

doi:10.3390/audiolres11040061

Jordana C Soares, Winnie Ly + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/audiolres11040061

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Abstract

Many hearing difficulties can be explained as a loss of audibility, a problem easily detected and treated using standard audiological procedures. Yet, hearing can be much poorer (or more impaired) than audibility predicts because of deficits in the suprathreshold mechanisms that encode the rapidly changing, spectral, temporal, and binaural aspects of the sound. The ability to evaluate these mechanisms requires well-defined stimuli and strict adherence to rigorous psychometric principles. This project reports on the comparison between a laboratory-based and a mobile system’s results for psychoacoustic assessment in adult listeners with normal hearing. A description of both systems employed is provided. Psychoacoustic tests include frequency discrimination, amplitude modulation detection, binaural encoding, and temporal gap detection. Results reported by the mobile system were not significantly different from those collected with the laboratory-based system for most of the tests and were consistent with those reported in the literature. The mobile system has the potential to be a feasible option for the assessment of suprathreshold auditory encoding abilities.

Highlights

Hearing loss is the third most prevalent chronic disability among older adults and affects an increasing number of younger individuals [1,2]
Thresholds, averaged across blocks, are shown in the bottom portion of this display, along with the comparison to the normative range
Shapiro–Wilk test of normality showed of test center frequency are displayed in Figure of Shapiro–Wilk test of normality strong evidence of non-normality in distribution for all frequencies (p < 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

Hearing loss is the third most prevalent chronic disability among older adults and affects an increasing number of younger individuals [1,2]. When unaddressed, hearing loss may impact health, well-being, relationships, communication, education, employment, and finances. Many of the adverse impacts of hearing loss can be mitigated using timely and accurate methods for hearing assessment followed by the implementation of evidenceinformed rehabilitative interventions [2]. Audiologic assessment begins with the “audiogram”, an internationally agreed upon metric for reporting hearing loss [3]. Thresholds of sensitivity are measured at discrete frequencies that correspond to the speech range. Evaluating only the range of audibility across discrete frequencies fails to capture the hearing difficulties reported by some listeners. Twelve percent of adults presenting with hearing difficulties were found to have normal audibility [7]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion