Cochlear threshold microstructure shapes loudness, which drives hearing decisions

Evidence

The effect of threshold microstructure (as measured by OAEs) on loudness perception is particularly noteworthy because relative loudness is also known to be one of the most important factors affecting the decision weights listeners place on different information-bearing components of sounds (Berg 1990 ; Lutfi and Jesteadt 2006 ; Epstein and Silva 2009 ; Thorson 2012 ; Rasetshwane et al. 2013 ). This suggests that OAEs might be used to diagnose difficulty in target-in-noise listening tasks through their impact on decision weights. … Stimulus frequency OAEs (SFOAEs), which are evoked using a single frequency sound, are one of the most diagnostic OAEs regarding cochlear function. They show a highly replicable individualistic pattern of amplitude maxima and minima when measured with high enough frequency resolution, a pattern called SFOAE fine structure. The level difference between maxima and minima can be as large as 30 dB. Usually SOAEs occur near the maxima of SFOAEs fine structure (Bergevin et al. 2012 ; Dewey and Dhar 2014 ). Given that loudness varies with SFOAE maxima and minima and that loudness is a strong predictor of listener decision weights, it is possible that both SFOAEs and SOAEs may be used to predict individual differences in behavioural decision weights. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5762

Categorization

• XREF: Connects cochlear fine structure and its 30 dB amplitude variation to the reader’s broader interest in links between physiology, psychoacoustics, and decision behavior.