Fifteen subjects with unilateral sensorineural hypacusis were tested to determine the sound intensity eliciting the acoustic reflex in normal and impaired ears and the sound intensity in the normal ear which is equal in loudness to the intensity eliciting the acoustic reflex in the abnormal ear. Results suggest that loudness is not the mediating factor in the acoustic reflex, justifying the suggestion that low sensation level reflexes observed in hearing-impaired patients should not be considered an unequivocal indicant of recruitment.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The masking plateau revisited.

The masking plateau is defined in terms of effective masking. Formulas are advanced to indicate conditions of under-masking, minimum masking, the plateau, maximum masking, and overmasking.

Audiometry↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The effects of sophistication on three threshold tests for subjects with simulated hearing loss.

Forty-five normal-hearing subjects were divided into three groups to determine the effects of listener sophistication on threshold estimates obtained with three commonly used tests for pseudohypacusis. A pure-tone Stenger test, speech Stenger test, and pure-tone delayed auditory feedback test were performed on each subject. The results indicate that increased sophistication levels allow subjects to simulate larger hearing losses on the two Stenger procedures. Sophistication level did not play a significant role in threshold determination with the delayed auditory feedback procedure, which was also found to be the closest indicator of true threshold.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A children's Spanish word discrimination test for non-Spanish-speaking clinicians.

A picture-pointing speech discrimination test which can be efficiently administered by English-speaking clinicians to Spanish-speaking children was developed. The test consists of four lists of 25 bisyllabic words. Two syllable words were chosen as stimuli instead of the traditional monosyllabic words because of the limited number of concrete monosyllabic words in Spanish. These words were recorded in Spanish on the first channel of an audio tape and in English on the second channel. The purpose of this dual recording was to present the Spanish stimuli to the subjects at the same time the clinicians monitored the appropriateness of responses in English.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Central masking effects on spondee threshold as a function of masker sensation level and masker sound pressure level.

Thirteen subjects with normal hearing and thirteen with sensorineural hearing loss were tested with spondaic words to determine their spondee thresholds in the presence of several levels of contralateral noise. Results indicate that the threshold shift ascribed to central masking is a function of the sensation level of the noise. Recommendations for clinical application are made.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Audiologic detection of auditory processing disorders in children.

A group of 11 normal children was compared to a group of language learning-disabled children on two auditory discrimination tasks. The word intelligibility by picture identification test was distorted by low pass filtering and bandpass filtering to be used as distorted monaural discrimination tasks and as tests of binaural fusion. Results revealed that the two groups could not be differentiated on the basis of distorted speech presented monaurally in diotic over dichotic scores than did the normal group. A procedure for audiologic screening for language learning-disabled children with normal hearing sensitivity is suggested.

Audiometry↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of listener sophistication on respiration audiometry.

Thirty normal-hearing college-age adults were tested by standard and respiration audiometry (RA) at 1000 Hz to investigate the effects of subject knowledge of the RA procedure. Three levels of sophistication were employed: (1) no knowledge, (2) full knowledge, and (3) deception. No significant effects on RA thresholds were revealed as a function of subject knowledge. RA itself was found to be less satisfactory as a means of measuring auditory threshold because of the difficulty in obtaining responses from some subjects and the degree of subjectivity required to judge responses.

Audiometry↗