Association between Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emission and Psychoacoustic measures

AIM: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association of presence and absence of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) on different psycho-acoustic measures such as intensity discrimination, gap detection test, duration discrimination test, modulation detection for sinusoidal amplitude modulated noise at 8, 20, 60, and 100 Hz. METHOD: Sixty adults with hearing sensitivity within normal limits were divided into two groups; group 1 consisted of participants with SOAEs present and group 2 consisted of participants with SOAEs absent. All the participants were tested for presence of SOAEs and different psycho-acoustic measures. RESULTS: The present study results showed no significant difference on intensity discrimination, gap detection test, duration discrimination test, modulation detection for sinusoidal amplitude modulated noise at 8, 20, 60, and 100 Hz in presence and absent of SOAE. CONCLUSION: The findings reveals that the presence or absence of SOAE did not influence or enhance the psychophysical performance at most comfortable level in individuals having normal hearing.