Validating a Rapid, Automated Test of Spatial Release From Masking.
Kasey M Jakien, Sean D Kampel, Meghan M Stansell and 1 others
PMID 28973106WHAT IT FOUND
A headphone test of speech in noise gave repeatable thresholds in adults with hearing thresholds below 30 dB HL or 41 dB HL.
More spatial separation improved performance, but this was not tested in patients.
Key findings
01After the first run, thresholds on the headphone test stayed within 1.5 dB of each other.
02Spatial separation improved speech-in-noise performance, with the largest release of 8.5 dB at 90° separation.
03At 45° separation, the headphone test and the anechoic chamber test gave related results, with a correlation of r = .65.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The participants were adults with hearing thresholds below 30 dB HL in Experiment 1 and below 41 dB HL in Experiment 2, no history of otological disorders, and no hearing aids, so the paper does not show how the test performs in patients with hearing loss or suspected auditory processing problems. The analyzed samples were 29 participants in Experiment 1 and 40 participants in Experiment 2, and the paper did not report diagnostic accuracy against a clinical disorder. The anechoic chamber version is not available to most clinicians, and the headphone version used simulated spatial cues rather than real loudspeaker separation. Normative data for the test were still being developed, so the paper does not give clinical cutoffs. Some relationships between headphone and chamber conditions did not survive the correction for many correlations, so the evidence for equivalence is limited.
Declared interests
The paper reports funding from NIH NIDCD and VA RR&D National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research. It does not report a commercial conflict or author declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as a tested diagnostic tool for patients with hearing or auditory processing problems. The study used adults with hearing thresholds below 30 dB HL in Experiment 1 and below 41 dB HL in Experiment 2, and the paper says normative data are still being developed.