Loudness Adaptation with Modulated Stimuli

Adaptation to loudness and environmental stimuli in three newly fitted hearing aid users.

Hearing aid fitting strategies can be categorized according to whether a loudness normalization or a loudness equalization rationale is employed. Regardless of the underlying rationale, the amount of patient participation in determining the initial hearing aid settings will vary when an audiologist-driven (AD) versus a patient-driven protocol is employed. When an AD protocol is used, few change...

Loudness of dynamic stimuli in acoustic and electric hearing.

Traditional loudness models have been based on the average energy and the critical band analysis of steady-state sounds. However, most environmental sounds, including speech, are dynamic stimuli, in which the average level [e.g., the root-mean-square (rms) level] does not account for the large temporal fluctuations. The question addressed here was whether two stimuli of the same rms level but d...

Loudness, Annoyance and Unpleasantness of Amplitude Modulated Sounds

Loudness adaptation accompanying ribbon synapse and auditory nerve disorders.

Abnormal auditory adaptation is a standard clinical tool for diagnosing auditory nerve disorders due to acoustic neuromas. In the present study we investigated auditory adaptation in auditory neuropathy owing to disordered function of inner hair cell ribbon synapses (temperature-sensitive auditory neuropathy) or auditory nerve fibres. Subjects were tested when afebrile for (i) psychophysical lo...

A striking reduction of simple loudness adaptation in autism

Reports of sensory disturbance, such as loudness sensitivity or sound intolerance, are ubiquitous in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but a mechanistic explanation for these perceptual differences is lacking. Here we tested adaptation to loudness, a process that regulates incoming sensory input, in adults with ASD and matched controls. Simple loudness adaptation (SLA) is a fundamental adaptive pr...