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Objective: To investigate whether the use of mental tasking, when compared to no mental task, affects measurement of nystagmus response with regard to gain, phase & symmetry, and artefact when utilising video-oculography (VOG) as the measurement technique in rotary chair testing (RCT).Design: A within-subject repeated-measures design was utilised.Study samples: Seventeen (17) healthy adults were evaluated (age 22-25 years). Each participant underwent slow harmonic acceleration (SHA) testing for 0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, and 0.16 Hz using RCT at two separate counterbalanced visits. At one visit mental tasking was utilised while the other visit did not utilise mental tasking. The following outcomes were measured for each visit: gain, phase, symmetry, and artefact.Results: No significant difference between the tasking conditions with regard to gain, phase, symmetry, or artefact. Significant frequency affects were noted, as expected, for gain, phase, and artefact. Analysis of individual subject data did, however, describe significant effects of tasking with regard to gain, phase, symmetry, and artefact.Conclusion: These results suggest that the use of mental tasking during RCT using VOG had no significant group effect on SHA gain, phase, symmetry, and artefact. However, individual subject effects were observed indicating variability in the effects of mental tasking during RCT.

Research has shown that hearing aid acceptance is closely related to how well an individual tolerates background noise, regardless of improved speech understanding in background noise. The acceptable noise level (ANL) test was developed to quantify background noise acceptance. The ANL test measures a listener's willingness to listen to speech in noise rather than their ability to understand speech in noise, and is clinically valuable as a predictor of hearing aid success.Noise acceptance is thought to be mediated by central regions of the nervous system, but the underlying mechanism of noise acceptance is not well understood. Higher order central efferent mechanisms may be weaker and/or central afferent mechanisms are more active in listeners with large versus small ANLs. Noise acceptance, therefore, may not be limited to the auditory modality but observable across modalities. We designed a visual-ANL test, as a parallel of the auditory-ANL test, to examine the relations between auditory and visual noise acceptance.A correlational design.Thirty-seven adults between the ages of 21 and 30 years with normal hearing participated in this study.All participants completed the standard auditory-ANL task, the visual-ANL task developed for this study, reception thresholds for sentences using the hearing in noise test, and visual sentence recognition in noise using the text reception threshold test. Correlational analyses were performed to evaluate the relations between and among the ANL and perception tasks.Auditory- and Visual-ANLs were correlated; those who accepted more auditory noise were also those who accepted more visual noise. Auditory and visual perceptual measures were also correlated, demonstrating that both measures reflect common processes underlying the ability to recognize speech in noise. Finally, as expected, noise acceptance levels were unrelated to perception in noise across modalities.The results of this study support our hypothesis that noise acceptance may not be unique to the auditory modality, specifically, that the common variance shared between the two ANL tasks, may reflect a shared general perceptual or cognitive mechanism that is not specific to the auditory or visual domains. These findings also support that noise acceptance and speech recognition reflect different aspects of auditory and visual perception. Future work will relate these ANL measures with central tasks of inhibition and include hearing-impaired individuals to explore the mechanisms underlying noise acceptance.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects of mental tasking on measures of the caloric vestibulo-ocular reflex utilizing videonystagmography as the measurement technique. Method A within-subjects repeated-measures design was utilized. Sixteen healthy adults were evaluated (13 women, 3 men; ages 19–31 years). Each participant underwent bithermal caloric irrigation at 2 separate counterbalanced visits. At 1 visit mental tasking was utilized, whereas the other visit did not utilize mental tasking. The following outcomes were measured for each visit: peak slow-phase velocity (SPV), response duration, peak SPV latency, and eye blink artifact. Results No significant difference was seen for tasking versus no tasking with peak SPV, peak latency, or response duration. A significant difference was seen for the amount of eye blink artifact, with significantly more eye blinks present for the tasking condition. Conclusions Results could indicate mental tasking does not affect the important measure of SPV. Moreover, increased eye blink artifact with tasking could obscure the clinician's ability to read the nystagmograph. However, this investigation is limited to the healthy young adult population, and more studies should be performed to corroborate the presented evidence.

Accurate vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) measurement requires control of extravestibular suppressive factors such as visual fixation. Although visual fixation is the dominant suppressor and has been extensively studied, the mechanisms underlying suppression from nonvisual factors of attention and auditory stimulation are less clear. It has been postulated that the nonvisual suppression of the VOR is the result of one of two mechanisms: (1) activation of auditory reception areas excites efferent pathways to the vestibular nuclei, thus inhibiting the VOR or (2) cortical modulation of the VOR results from directed attention, which implies a nonmodality-specific process.The purpose of this research was to determine if the VOR is affected by the intensity level and/or type of speech stimulus.A repeated measures design was used. The experiment was single-blinded.Participants included 17 adults (14 females, three males) between the ages of 18–34 years who reported normal oculomotor, vestibular, neurological, and musculoskeletal function.Each participant underwent slow harmonic acceleration testing in a rotational chair. VOR gain was assessed at 0.02, 0.08, and 0.32 Hz in quiet (baseline). VOR gain was also assessed at each frequency while a forward running speech stimulus (attentional) or a backward running speech stimulus (nonattentional) was presented binaurally via insert earphones at 42, 62, and 82 dBA. The order of the conditions was randomized across participants. VOR difference gain was calculated as VOR gain in the auditory condition minus baseline VOR gain. To evaluate auditory efferent function, the medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR) was assayed using transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions (right ear) measured in the presence and absence of broadband noise (left ear). Contralateral acoustic reflex thresholds were also assessed using a broadband noise elicitor. A three-way repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to evaluate the effect of frequency, intensity level, and speech type on VOR difference gain. Correlations were conducted to determine if difference gain was related to the strength of the MOCR and/or to the acoustic reflex threshold.The analysis of variance indicated that VOR difference gain was not significantly affected by the intensity level or the type of speech stimulus. Correlations indicated VOR difference gain was not significantly related to the strength of the MOCR or the acoustic reflex threshold.The results were in contrast to previous research examining the effect of auditory stimulation on VOR gain as auditory stimulation did not produce VOR suppression or enhancement for most of the participants. Methodological differences between the studies may explain the discrepant results. The removal of an acoustic target from space to attend to may have prevented suppression or enhancement of the VOR. Findings support the hypothesis that VOR gain may be affected by cortical modulation through directed attention rather than due to activation of efferent pathways to the vestibular nuclei.

Digital hearing aids using a 16-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) provide a 96-dB input dynamic range. The level at which the ADC peak clips and distorts input signals ranges between 95 and 105 dB SPL. Recent research evaluated the effect of extending the input dynamic range in a commercially available hearing aid. Although the results were promising, several limitations were noted by the authors. Laboratory testing was conducted using recordings from hearing aids set for a flat 50-dB loss; however, field testing was conducted with hearing aids fitted for their hearing loss. In addition, participants rarely encountered input levels of sufficient intensity to adequately test the feature and were unable to directly compare aids with and without extended input dynamic range (EIDR) under identical conditions.The effects of EIDR under realistic and repeatable test conditions both within and outside the laboratory setting were evaluated.A repeated measures design was used. The experiment was single-blinded.Twenty adults (14 males and six females) between the ages of 30 and 71 years (average age 62 years) who were experienced hearing aid users participated.Each participant was fit with Oticon Opn hearing instruments binaurally using the National Acoustics Laboratory-Nonlinear 1 fitting strategy. Participants completed a two-week trial period using hearing aids with EIDR and a two-week trial period without EIDR. The initial EIDR condition trial period was counterbalanced. After each trial, laboratory evaluations were obtained at 85 dBC using the Connected Speech Test, the Hearing in Noise Test, and the acceptable noise level (ANL). Satisfaction ratings were conducted at 85 dBC using speech in quiet and in noise as well as music. Field-trial evaluations were obtained using the abbreviated profile of hearing aid benefit (APHAB). Satisfaction ratings were also conducted in the field at 85 dBC using speech and music. After the study, each participant indicated which trial period they preferred overall. Repeated measures analysis of variances were conducted to assess listener performance. Pairwise comparisons were then completed for significant main effects.In the laboratory, results did not reveal significant differences between EIDR conditions on any speech perception in noise test or any satisfaction rating measurement. In the field, results did not reveal significant differences between the EIDR conditions on the APHAB or on any of the satisfaction rating measurements. Nine participants (45%) preferred the EIDR condition. Fifteen participants (75%) indicated that speech clarity was the most important factor in determining the overall preference. Sixteen participants (80%) preferred the EIDR condition that resulted in the lower ANL.The use of EIDR in hearing aids within and outside the laboratory under realistic and repeatable test conditions did not positively or negatively impact performance or preference. Results disagreed with previous findings obtained in the laboratory that suggested EIDR improved performance; however, results agreed with previous findings obtained in the field. Future research may consider the effect of hearing aid experience, input level, and noise acceptance on potential benefit with EIDR.

Measurement of wideband reflectance requires stimuli to be delivered to the ear canal through a tube with diameter seven-times smaller than that of the average canal. This discontinuity may contribute to the measurement-location sensitivity of reflectance above 5 kHz [Lewis and Neely. (2015). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 138, 977–993]. To test this hypothesis, reflectance was measured at different locations in a set of artificial ear canals (cylindrical tubes with diameters of 8, 9, and 10 mm) terminated by an IEC711 coupler, and compared to the theoretical reflectance. The measured reflectance exhibited a high-frequency notch that (1) decreased in frequency as distance between the probe and coupler increased and (2) increased in magnitude as canal diameter increased. The theoretical reflectance lacked the high-frequency notch of the measured reflectance; however, it was possible to simulate the measured data by adding an inductance in series with the canal model [Karal. (1953). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 25, 327–334]. Transforming the impedance measured in the artificial canals to remove the estimated inductance decreased the notch depth and measurement-location sensitivity of the measured reflectance, especially for the larger diameter canals. Additionally, the measured reflectance more-closely approximated the theoretical reflectance. Findings have implications for in-situ sound-level calibrations.