Comparing Three Established Methods for Tinnitus Pitch Matching With Respect to Reliability, Matching Duration, and Subjective Satisfaction

Abstract

The pitch of tinnitus sound is a key characteristic that is of importance to research and sound therapies relying on exact tinnitus pitch matches. The identification of this tinnitus pitch is a challenging task as there is no objective measurement available. During the tinnitus pitch-matching procedure, the participant identifies an external sound that is most similar to the subjective perception of the tinnitus. Several methods have been developed to perform this pitch-matching procedure with tinnitus sufferers. In this study, we aimed to compare the method of adjustment, the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) method, and the likeness rating (LR) with respect to reliability, matching duration, and subjective satisfaction. Fifty-nine participants with chronic tinnitus were recruited and performed five consecutive runs of tinnitus matching. The participants were randomized to the three different pitch-matching methods. The intraclass correlation coefficients were .67 for method of adjustment, .63 for 2AFC, and .69 for LR, which can be interpreted as good reliability for all the three methods. However, the 2AFC method revealed significant larger within-subject variability than the other measures. Across the five runs and the three different methods, all participants learned to perform the pitch matching faster and with better self-rated accuracy. Comparing the three pitch-matching methods, LR is more time consuming and the participants were less satisfied with the 2AFC method. Overall, the three pitch-matching methods show good reliability. However, we identified differential aspects for improvement in all methods, which are discussed in this article.