Sensorineural hearing loss worsens diplacusis, which even normal hearers have mildly

Evidence

Pitch perception in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss is often poorer than for listeners with normal hearing, but as with other auditory phenomena, considerable variability exists across listeners. Because hearing loss influences the perception of pitch, it can lead to diplacusis, or the perception of hearing the same tone at a different pitch in each ear. Another way to think of diplacusis is that a single tone is heard as two tones with different pitches, one in each ear. Diplacusis can be measured by asking a listener to adjust the frequency of a tone in one ear so that its pitch matches a tone in the other ear. Normalhearing listeners have also been demonstrated to have diplacusis, with pitch discrepancies of about 1% to 2% across the ears (e.g., Albers & Wilson, 1968). Yet, the magnitude and prevalence of diplacusis is higher in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Diplacusis can be quite pronounced in listeners with asymmetrical and severe-to-profound hearing losses. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1327

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines diplacusis clearly as hearing the same physical tone at different pitches in each ear, along with its measurement method.