Auditory Tests for Characterizing Hearing Deficits in Listeners With Various Hearing Abilities: The BEAR Test Battery

Abstract

The Better hEAring Rehabilitation (BEAR) project aims to provide a new clinical profiling tool—a test battery—for hearing loss characterization. Although the loss of sensitivity can be efficiently measured using pure-tone audiometry, the assessment of supra-threshold hearing deficits remains a challenge. In contrast to the classical “attenuation-distortion” model, the proposed BEAR approach is based on the hypothesis that the hearing abilities of a given listener can be characterized along two dimensions, reflecting independent types of perceptual deficits (distortions). A data-driven approach provided evidence for the existence of different auditory profiles with different degrees of distortions. Ten tests were included in a test battery, based on their clinical feasibility, time efficiency, and related evidence from the literature. The tests were divided into six categories: audibility, speech perception, binaural processing abilities, loudness perception, spectro-temporal modulation sensitivity, and spectro-temporal resolution. Seventy-five listeners with symmetric, mild-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss were selected from a clinical population. The analysis of the results showed interrelations among outcomes related to high-frequency processing and outcome measures related to low-frequency processing abilities. The results showed the ability of the tests to reveal differences among individuals and their potential use in clinical settings.