Development of Improved Earphone for Hearing Testing

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目旨在开发一种用于听力诊断的耳机，该耳机的功能将显著提高常规听力测试的效率并降低成本。最常用的耳机采用超听觉设计，有几个不受欢迎的特点，包括1)“闭塞效应”，人为增加对骨传导刺激的敏感性；2)环境噪声排除能力差；3)传递到人耳的声压在主体间的高度变异性；4)舒适度差。在骨传导测试时，遮挡效应要求测试耳被揭开。这就要求测试人员在纯音测试期间多次改变换能器的布置。在手动测试中，这个需求会增加几分钟的测试时间。对于自动化测试，在测试过程中需要多次重新定位换能器对减少测试人员干预的目标是适得其反的。差的环境噪声排除要求在昂贵的声音室进行测试。主体间可变性增加了与阈值测量相关的方差。糟糕的舒适度限制了一些患者参加测试的时间。其他耳机可以解决部分问题，但不是全部。在这个项目中，将开发一种耳机，1)最大限度地减少遮挡效应，允许使用单个换能器进行纯音和语音听力测试，并促进自动化测试方法；2)增加环境噪声排除，消除（在许多环境中）对消声室的需求；3)降低主体间变异；4)增加舒适度。除了满足这些目标外，耳机必须具有与其他听力耳机相似的频率响应，以避免用于语音测试的刺激频率内容发生重大变化。在第一阶段的项目中，已经开发和评估了几个原型。第一阶段获得的初步数据表明，当前设计具有显著降低遮挡效应、良好的环境噪声排除、更稳定的与耳朵的耦合以减少主体间的可变性、出色的舒适性和出色的频率响应。虽然这种设计足以满足自动化测试的需求，并提高了手工测试的效率，但在第二阶段将探索额外的改进。这些将包括消除残余遮挡效应在250赫兹和增加输出。这些可以通过修改外壳和用更有效的设备替换换能器来完成。在美国，每年进行数百万次听力测试，其方法在过去五十年中基本没有变化。测试通常由训练有素的专业人员在昂贵的隔音室中进行。该项目是研发高效、准确、自动化听力测试项目的一个组成部分。自动化测试不能用最常用的听力测试耳机进行。在这个项目中，正在开发一种耳机，可以用于自动和手动测试，并将显著提高效率，准确性和可访问性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project seeks to develop an earphone for diagnostic audiometry with features that will significantly increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of routine hearing testing. The most-often used earphones employ a supra-aural design that has several undesirable characteristics, including 1) an "occlusion effect", an artificial increase in sensitivity to bone-conducted stimuli; 2) poor ambient noise exclusion; 3) high inter-subject variability in sound pressures delivered to human ears; and 4) poor comfort. The occlusion effect necessitates that the test ear be uncovered during bone conduction testing. This requires that the tester change the transducer arrangement several times during pure tone testing. In manual testing, this requirement can add several minutes to the test time. For automated testing, the need to reposition transducers several times during the test is counterproductive to the goal of reducing tester intervention. The poor ambient noise exclusion requires that testing be performed in expensive sound rooms. The inter-subject variability increases the variance associated with threshold measures. The poor comfort limits the time that some patients will participate in the test. Other earphones are available that address some, but not all, of these problems. In this project, an earphone will be developed that 1) minimizes the occlusion effect permitting pure tone and speech hearing tests to be conducted with a single transducer arrangement and facilitating automated test methods; 2) increases ambient noise exclusion, eliminating (in many environments) the need for sound-attenuating rooms; 3) decreases inter-subject variability; and 4) increases comfort. In addition to meeting these goals, the earphone must have a frequency response that is similar to other audiometric earphones to avoid significant changes in the frequency content of stimuli used for speech tests. During the Phase I project several prototypes have been developed and evaluated. The preliminary data obtained in Phase I indicates that the current design has a significantly reduced occlusion effect, good ambient noise exclusion, a more stable coupling to the ear for reduced inter-subject variability, excellent comfort, and an excellent frequency response. Although this design is adequate to meet the requirements for automated testing and increased efficiency of manual testing, additional improvements will be explored in Phase II. These will include elimination of the residual occlusion effect at 250 Hz and increased output. These can be accomplished by modification of the enclosure and replacing the transducer with a more efficient device. /Relevance Millions of hearing tests are conducted each year in the US with methods that are essentially unchanged in the last five decades. The tests are usually conducted by highly trained professionals in expensive sound-treated rooms. This project is a component of a research and development program to develop efficient, accurate, automated hearing tests. Automated testing cannot be performed with the earphones most commonly used for hearing testing. In this project an earphone is being developed that can be used in both automated and manual testing and will significantly increase the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility.