Tinnitus loudness matches do not predict tinnitus annoyance or diagnostic value

Evidence

In most instances, the sound level in dB HL that best matches the tinnitus loudness is about 5 to 15 dB above the patient’s audiometric threshold. There is no relationship between the tinnitus loudness and the annoyance of the tinnitus, and today, tinnitus loudness matches are not considered to be useful to diagnostic audiology. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1742

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A counterintuitive dissociation between perceptual magnitude and affective impact: subjective pain/annoyance decouples from measured loudness, which bears on models of how sensation relates to distress.
• QUESTION: What neural or attentional mechanism would explain loudness-annoyance dissociation? Does heightened salience or threat-response rather than intensity drive tinnitus distress?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1742
• XREF: connects to: Tinnitus loudness typically sits 5-15 dB above threshold yet does not predict annoyance.