Hearing impairments hidden in normal listeners

摘要

Early and accurate diagnosis of sensory deficits is a public health concern with major scientific and financial implications. Several fundamental requirements conspire to make this goal a difficult one to achieve; among them is the necessity for well-designed quick tests that can pinpoint the nature of the deficits. Another is the need for a deep understanding of the functional organization of the sensory system and the cues mediating perception. To appreciate how these requirements shape our current diagnostic paradigms, consider the striking difference between the procedures routinely used to screen children and young adults for visual and auditory impairments. In vision, even the simplest eye examinations test the ability to identify the shapes of letters or the direction of arrows, and hence the acuity of the visual system in encoding the meaningful structure of the visual scene.