Jennifer L. Janson
Ernest M. Weiler
David E. Sandman
Yea Wen Shiau
ML #379, Dept. of Commun. Sci. & Disord., Univ. of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221
Todd Nelson
Joel Warm
University of Cincinnati
Eleanor Stromberg
Cincinnati Speech & Hear. Ctr., Cincinnati, OH
High-frequency impairment was found to have a significant effect on ipsilateral loudness magnitude adaptation in complex interactions [Korman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 81, S76 (1987)]. The present study used simple comparisons of 12 listeners with high-frequency hearing loss, age matched with 12 having no loss. All were tested at 1 kHz for adaptation at 40 and 60 dB HTL. [See Weiler et al., Brit. J. Audiol. 15, 204--205 (1981).] The hearing loss group showed significantly more adaptation at 40 dB than at 60, while normals showed the same amount. Based on the two studies, it appears that high-frequency hearing loss does have some effect on the loudness function at 1 kHz where hearing appears to be normal.