Acquisition of auditory profiles for good and impaired hearing

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a user-friendly way of measuring patients' threshold and supra-threshold hearing, with potential for application in clinical research. The end-product of these tests is a graphical profile summarizing absolute threshold, frequency selectivity, and compression characteristics across a spectrum of frequencies (0.25-6 kHz). Design: A battery of three psychophysical hearing tests consisted of measures of absolute threshold, frequency selectivity, and compression. An automated, cued, single-interval, adaptive tracking procedure was employed. The tests results were collated and used to generate a readily visualized 'profile' for each listener. Study sample: Participants were 83 adults (57 impaired-hearing and 26 good-hearing, age 20-75 years). Results: Listeners tolerated the tests well. Single-ear profiles were obtained in an average of 74 minutes testing time (range 46-120 minutes). The variability of individual measurements was low. Substantial differences between normal and impaired listeners and also among the impaired listeners were observed. Qualitative differences in compression and frequency-selectivity were seen that could not be predicted by threshold measurements alone. Conclusions: The hearing profiles are informative with respect to supra-threshold hearing performance and the information is easily accessible through the graphical display. Further development is required for routine use in a clinical context.