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Pure-tone audiometry is the main hearing test used to identify hearing threshold levels of an individual, enabling determination of the degree, type and configuration of a hearing loss [1] [2] and thus providing a basis for diagnosis and management.
A hearing test provides an evaluation of the sensitivity of a person's sense of hearing and is most often performed by an audiologist using an audiometer. An audiometer is used to determine a person's hearing sensitivity at different frequencies. There are other hearing tests as well, e.g., Weber test and Rinne test.
A pure tone audiometry hearing test is the gold standard for evaluation of hearing loss or disability. [medical citation needed] Other types of hearing tests also generate graphs or tables of results that may be loosely called 'audiograms', but the term is universally used to refer to the result of a pure tone audiometry hearing test.
It is also used in various kinds of audiometry, including pure tone audiometry, and the standard hearing test to test each ear unilaterally and to test speech recognition in the presence of partially masking noise. Auditory masking is exploited to perform data compression for sound signals .
The absolute threshold of hearing (ATH), also known as the absolute hearing threshold or auditory threshold, is the minimum sound level of a pure tone that an average human ear with normal hearing can hear with no other sound present. The absolute threshold relates to the sound that can just be heard by the organism.
For example, aging typically leads to hearing thresholds which get poorer as test frequencies get higher. [10] Noise induced hearing loss is typically characterized by a "notch" in the audiogram, with the poorest threshold occurring between 3000 and 6000 Hz (most often 4000 Hz) and better thresholds at lower and higher frequencies.
Loudness, being a psychological quantity, is difficult to measure, so Fletcher and Munson averaged their results over many test subjects to derive reasonable averages. The lowest equal-loudness contour represents the quietest audible tone—the absolute threshold of hearing. The highest contour is the threshold of pain.
An audiogram is the result of a hearing test. The most common type of hearing test is pure tone audiometry (PTA). It charts the thresholds of hearing sensitivity at a selection of standard frequencies between 250 and 8000 Hz. There is also high frequency pure tone audiometry which tests frequencies from 8000 to 20,000 Hz.