ASA 125th Meeting Ottawa 1993 May

2pPP1. Modeling and simulation of typanograms.

Lin Chen

Hear. Res. Labs., Dept. of Commun. Disord. and Sci., 215 Parker Hall, State Univ. of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214

Tympanometry has become a standard evaluation procedure for children and adults in the audiological clinic. Because of the acoustical complexity of both the middle ear system and the testing device, there is a need to study tympanometry not only from an experimental but also a theoretical perspective to achieve a full understanding of the underlying mechanism. In the present study, a model has been developed for simulation of different type of tympanograms. In the model, the acoustic characteristics of the ear canal are described by a set of acoustic equations and those of the middle ear are described by the Zwislocki electric analog model. Model parameters corresponding to the ear canal length, the stiffness of the middle ear, and the resistance of the cochlea are manipulated to simulate the effects of the applied pressure in the ear canal during a tympanometric procedure. Typical tympanograms such as 1B1G, 3B1G, 3B3G, and 5B3G have been demonstrated with the model and are in good agreement with those actually recorded from the human ear. Some tympanograms seen under pathological and abnormal conditions are also simulated.