Sensorineural hearing loss produces rapid loudness growth while discomfort thresholds stay normal

Evidence

Listeners with sensorineural hearing loss experience rapid growth of loudness, referred to as recruitment. Their loudness discomfort levels are the same as those of listeners with normal hearing, except among those with severe hearing loss who experience underrecruitment. Loss of outer hair cells is the primary contributor to recruitment. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 868

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Defines recruitment, a cornerstone concept linking normal and impaired hearing.
• QUESTION: Why would loudness discomfort levels stay the same despite recruitment? The cochlear mechanism that preserves the upper end while steepening the growth curve is worth chasing.

Related

• Sensorineural hearing loss causes abnormal rapid loudness growth called recruitment (similarity 0.95)
• Mild-moderate losses show recruitment while severe-profound losses show underrecruitment (similarity 0.91)
• The full loudness range squeezes into a smaller dynamic range for impaired listeners. (similarity 0.89)
• Sensorineural hearing loss compresses the full loudness range into fewer decibels (similarity 0.88)
• Loudness-growth slope increases with hearing-loss degree but resists exact prediction (similarity 0.88)
• Mild and severe hearing losses produce opposite loudness growth patterns (similarity 0.88)
• Conductive and cochlear losses produce different loudness growth patterns (similarity 0.87)
• Loudness recruitment shrinks dynamic range while preserving overall loudness (similarity 0.87)
• Severe hearing loss from inner hair cell loss reduces maximum loudness (similarity 0.86)
• Recruitment can explain why loudness summation is absent in noise-induced hearing loss (similarity 0.86)
• Recruitment makes loudness grow faster in impaired ears than normal ears. (similarity 0.86)
• Outer hair cell loss is the primary driver of loudness recruitment (similarity 0.85)
• Testing hearing-impaired listeners could reveal how loudness distortion maps to brain activity (similarity 0.85)
• Hearing loss squeezes the full loudness range into a much smaller dynamic range (similarity 0.85)
• Loudness recruitment makes raised speech feel too loud even without abnormal sound perception (similarity 0.85)