An adaptive procedure for categorical loudness scaling.

In this study, an adaptive procedure for categorical loudness scaling is introduced and evaluated. The procedure adjusts the presentation levels to the subject's individual auditory dynamic range without employing any premeasurement and presents levels in randomized order. The procedure has been named "Oldenburg-ACALOS" (Oldenburg-Adaptive CAtegorical LOudness Scaling). It was evaluated using repeated measurements with ten subjects with normal hearing and ten subjects with sensorineural hearing impairment. The results of this investigation revealed that the adaptive procedure provides greater reliability, while being more time efficient than a reference procedure that uses constant stimuli.

[1]  Allen Parducci,et al.  Category rating scales: Effects of relative spacing and frequency , 1971 .

[2]  J. Hellbruck,et al.  Hörgeräte-Audiometrie: ein computerunterstütztes psychologisches Verfahren zur Hörgeräteanpassung , 1985 .

[3]  H. Dillon,et al.  The National Acoustic Laboratories' (NAL) New Procedure for Selecting the Gain and Frequency Response of a Hearing Aid , 1986, Ear and hearing.

[4]  S Buus,et al.  Temporal integration of loudness in listeners with hearing losses of primarily cochlear origin. , 1999, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[5]  C Elberling.  Loudness scaling revisited. , 1999, Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.

[6]  S. S. Stevens.  On the psychophysical law. , 1957, Psychological review.

[7]  R M Cox,et al.  The Contour Test of Loudness Perception , 1997, Ear and hearing.

[8]  H. Levitt.  Transformed up-down methods in psychoacoustics. , 1971, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[9]  A Parducci,et al.  The category effect with rating scales: number of categories, number of stimuli, and method of presentation. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  R H Margolis,et al.  Magnitude estimation of loudness. I: Application to hearing aid selection. , 1984, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[11]  S Gatehouse,et al.  Test‐Retest Reliability of Loudness Scaling , 1996, Ear and hearing.

[12]  J Kiessling,et al.  Adaptive fitting of hearing instruments by category loudness scaling (ScalAdapt). , 1996, Scandinavian audiology.

[13]  R C Seewald,et al.  Effects Of Test Procedure On Individual Loudness Functions , 1997, Ear and hearing.

[14]  V Pluvinage,et al.  Evaluation of a dual-channel full dynamic range compression system for people with sensorineural hearing loss. , 1992, Ear and hearing.

[15]  G Keidser,et al.  An efficient, adaptive method of measuring loudness growth functions. , 1999, Scandinavian audiology.

[16]  R V Harrison,et al.  The effects of age of cochlear implantation on speech perception outcomes in prelingually deaf children , 2001, Scandinavian audiology. Supplementum.

[17]  Jozef J. Zwislocki,et al.  Monaural Loudness Function at 1000 cps and Interaural Summation , 1963 .

[18]  S Margolf-Hackl,et al.  Comparison of two digital hearing instrument fitting strategies , 2001, Scandinavian audiology. Supplementum.

[19]  R A Bentler,et al.  The effect of test signal type and bandwidth on the categorical scaling of loudness. , 1996, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  M. M. Taylor,et al.  PEST: Efficient Estimates on Probability Functions , 1967 .

[21]  R H Margolis.  Magnitude estimation of loudness. III: Performance of selected hearing aid users. , 1985, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[22]  R C Seewald,et al.  The input/output formula: a theoretical approach to the fitting of personal amplification devices. , 1995, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[23]  J. Allen,et al.  Loudness growth in 1/2-octave bands (LGOB)--a procedure for the assessment of loudness. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[24]  S. Arlinger,et al.  A comparison of 2-dB and 5-dB step size in pure-tone audiometry. , 1986, Scandinavian audiology.

[25]  R. Campbell.  Modifications to the BUDTIF procedure , 1974 .

[26]  S. Olsen,et al.  Long-term test-retest reliability of category loudness scaling in normal-hearing subjects using pure-tone stimuli. , 1998, Scandinavian audiology.

[27]  R. Teghtsoonian,et al.  Range effects in psychophysical scaling and a revision of Stevens' law. , 1973, The American journal of psychology.

[28]  H. Montgomery,et al.  Direct estimation: effect of methodological factors on scale type. , 1975, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[29]  O Dyrlund,et al.  Clinical evaluation of three different loudness scaling protocols. , 1997, Scandinavian audiology.

[30]  O. Heller,et al.  Hörfeldaudiometrie mit dem Verfahren der Kategorienunterteilung (KU) , 1985 .

[31]  R. Hellman,et al.  Rate of loudness growth for pure tones in normal and impaired hearing. , 1993, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[32]  W Jesteadt,et al.  An adaptive procedure for subjective judgments , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.