A PREFERRED METHOD FOE CLINICAL DETERMINATION OF PURE-TONE THRESHOLDS

摘要

The Hughson-Westlake method for obtaining pure-tone thresholds uses a series of tonal ascents. The method encourages stability of reactions by eliciting on-effect responses. It yields a measure of unadapted level of acuity. Moreover, since moment-to-moment fluctuation in acuity is small for most listeners, theory predicts that the Hughson-Westlake method will yield thresholds which are clinically equivalent to those obtained by patterning similar tonal presentations in descending or in "threshold crossing" sequences. Experimental exploration with Su normal hearing subjects confirms this expectation. Hence, the Hughson-Westlake method is recommended for clinical use.