Development of Improved Earphone for Hearing Testing

用于听力测试的改良耳机的开发

• 批准号: 7326702
• 负责人: ROBERT H MARGOLIS
• 金额: $ 25.67万
• 依托单位: AUDIOLOGY, INC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2009-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7326702
• 关键词: Address; Air; Attenuated; Audiometry; Bone Conduction; Calibration; Characteristics; Clinical; Contralateral; Coupling; DNA Sequence Rearrangement; Data; Development; Devices; Diagnostic; Ear; Environment; Evaluation; Exclusion; External auditory canal; Frequencies; Goals; Head; Hearing Tests; Human; Intervention; Manuals; Masks; Measures; Methods; Modification; Noise; Output; Patients; Phase; Relative (related person); Residual state; Signal Transduction; Speech; Speech Audiometry; Standards of Weights and Measures; Stimulus; Testing; Time; Training; Transducers; Variant; attenuation; bone; cost; design; improved; pressure; programs; prototype; research and development; response; skills; sound; speech recognition

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project seeks to develop an earphone for diagnostic audiometry with features that will significantly increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of routine hearing testing. The most-often used earphones employ a supra-aural design that has several undesirable characteristics, including 1) an "occlusion effect", an artificial increase in sensitivity to bone-conducted stimuli; 2) poor ambient noise exclusion; 3) high inter-subject variability in sound pressures delivered to human ears; and 4) poor comfort. The occlusion effect necessitates that the test ear be uncovered during bone conduction testing. This requires that the tester change the transducer arrangement several times during pure tone testing. In manual testing, this requirement can add several minutes to the test time. For automated testing, the need to reposition transducers several times during the test is counterproductive to the goal of reducing tester intervention. The poor ambient noise exclusion requires that testing be performed in expensive sound rooms. The inter-subject variability increases the variance associated with threshold measures. The poor comfort limits the time that some patients will participate in the test. Other earphones are available that address some, but not all, of these problems. In this project, an earphone will be developed that 1) minimizes the occlusion effect permitting pure tone and speech hearing tests to be conducted with a single transducer arrangement and facilitating automated test methods; 2) increases ambient noise exclusion, eliminating (in many environments) the need for sound-attenuating rooms; 3) decreases inter-subject variability; and 4) increases comfort. In addition to meeting these goals, the earphone must have a frequency response that is similar to other audiometric earphones to avoid significant changes in the frequency content of stimuli used for speech tests. During the Phase I project several prototypes have been developed and evaluated. The preliminary data obtained in Phase I indicates that the current design has a significantly reduced occlusion effect, good ambient noise exclusion, a more stable coupling to the ear for reduced inter-subject variability, excellent comfort, and an excellent frequency response. Although this design is adequate to meet the requirements for automated testing and increased efficiency of manual testing, additional improvements will be explored in Phase II. These will include elimination of the residual occlusion effect at 250 Hz and increased output. These can be accomplished by modification of the enclosure and replacing the transducer with a more efficient device. /Relevance Millions of hearing tests are conducted each year in the US with methods that are essentially unchanged in the last five decades. The tests are usually conducted by highly trained professionals in expensive sound-treated rooms. This project is a component of a research and development program to develop efficient, accurate, automated hearing tests. Automated testing cannot be performed with the earphones most commonly used for hearing testing. In this project an earphone is being developed that can be used in both automated and manual testing and will significantly increase the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility.

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目旨在开发用于诊断测量的耳机，其功能将大大提高效率并降低常规听力测试的成本。最常用的耳机采用了上膜上的设计，具有多种不良特征，包括1）“遮挡效应”，对骨导导的刺激的敏感性人为增加； 2）不良环境噪声排除； 3）递送到人耳的声音压力的高主体间变异性； 4）舒适性差。闭塞效果需要在骨传导测试期间发现测试耳朵。这要求测试仪在纯音测试期间几次更改换能器的布置。在手动测试中，此要求可以在测试时间增加几分钟。对于自动测试，在测试期间重新定位换能器几次的需求与减少测试仪干预的目标适得其反。较差的环境噪声排除要求在昂贵的声音室进行测试。受试者间的可变性增加了与阈值度量相关的方差。舒适性差会限制一些患者参加测试的时间。其他耳机可以解决这些问题的某些但不是全部。在该项目中，将开发出耳机，1）最大程度地减少闭塞效果，允许使用单个传感器布置进行纯音调和语音听力测试，并促进自动化测试方法； 2）增加了环境噪声的排除，消除了（在许多环境中）对声音增强室的需求； 3）降低受试者间的变异性； 4）增加舒适感。除了实现这些目标外，耳机还必须具有类似于其他听力电脑手机的频率响应，以避免使用用于语音测试的刺激的频率含量发生重大变化。在I期项目中，已经开发和评估了几种原型。在第一阶段获得的初步数据表明，当前的设计具有明显降低的闭塞效果，良好的环境噪声排除，更稳定的耦合，以降低受试者间的可变性，出色的舒适性和出色的频率响应。尽管这种设计足以满足自动测试的要求和提高手动测试的效率，但在第二阶段将探讨其他改进。这些将包括消除250 Hz时的残留闭塞效应并增加产出。这些可以通过修改外壳并用更有效的设备代替传感器来实现。 /相关性数以百万计的听力测试在美国每年进行，这些方法在过去五十年中基本上没有变化。测试通常由训练有素的专业人士在经过昂贵的声音处理的房间内进行。该项目是开发有效，准确，自动化听力测试的研发计划的组成部分。最常用的耳机无法进行自动测试。在这个项目中，正在开发可用于自动化和手动测试的耳机，并会大大提高效率，准确性和可访问性。