Loudness-growth slope increases with hearing-loss degree but resists exact prediction

Evidence

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) has a robust and profound effect on loudness, with a primary effect being abnormally rapid growth of loudness. Fowler (1928) was the first to report that listeners with SNHL experienced a similar range of loudness (from very soft to uncomfortably loud) but over a smaller range of decibel levels due to reduced audibility. He dubbed this phenomenon loudness recruitment. Numerous studies have followed Fowler’s initial observations, and an illustration of loudness growth in listeners with SNHL is illustrated in Figure 4–14, which shows a sample loudness growth function for a listener with 40 dB hearing loss plotted along with a loudness growth for a listener with normal hearing. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 838 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hearing-impaired listeners experience a steeper loudness-growth function known as recruitment; Loudness growth with intensity requires experimental quantification, not intuition; Loudness grows faster at low levels than Stevens’ power law predicts — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 727 (+4 more)

Related

• Sensorineural hearing loss compresses the full loudness range into fewer decibels (similarity 0.92)
• Hearing-impaired listeners experience a steeper loudness-growth function known as recruitment (similarity 0.90)
• The full loudness range squeezes into a smaller dynamic range for impaired listeners. (similarity 0.90)
• Hearing loss squeezes the full loudness range into a much smaller dynamic range (similarity 0.89)
• Recruitment can explain why loudness summation is absent in noise-induced hearing loss (similarity 0.89)
• Sensorineural hearing loss produces rapid loudness growth while discomfort thresholds stay normal (similarity 0.88)
• Conductive and cochlear losses produce different loudness growth patterns (similarity 0.87)
• Mild and severe hearing losses produce opposite loudness growth patterns (similarity 0.87)
• Hearing-impaired patients with loudness recruitment could disentangle intensity and loudness encoding. (similarity 0.87)
• Loudness recruitment shrinks dynamic range while preserving overall loudness (similarity 0.87)
• Loudness grows faster at low levels than Stevens’ power law predicts (similarity 0.86)
• Hearing-impaired specific loudness jumps to near-normal values 20 dB above threshold (similarity 0.85)
• Mild-moderate losses show recruitment while severe-profound losses show underrecruitment (similarity 0.85)
• Loudness growth with intensity requires experimental quantification, not intuition (similarity 0.85)
• In hearing-impaired regions loudness grows far faster with level (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Loudness recruitment shrinks dynamic range while preserving overall loudness #expands (0.85)
• Conductive and cochlear losses produce different loudness growth patterns #expands (0.80)
• Sensorineural hearing loss compresses the full loudness range into fewer decibels #qualifies (0.80) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 838
• Loudness grows as a power law of physical intensity so relative changes match #corroborates (0.75) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1262