Comparison of Pure-Tone Audibility Thresholds Obtained with Audiological and Two-Interval Forced-Choice Procedures

Abstract

Audibility thresholds were measured at 500 and 4000 Hz with a standard clinical procedure and a two-interval, forced-choice (2IFC) adaptive procedure for 72 normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners, age 17 to 83. Psychometric functions were obtained for clinical, 2IFC, and Yes-No procedures. A measure of response bias was obtained from the Yes-No procedure. The 2IFC adaptive thresholds were 6.5 dB lower than audiological thresholds. The psychometric functions for the forced?choice procedures were generally shallower than those for the clinical procedure and were shifted to lower sound pressure levels. Response bias played a small role at best in accounting for the magnitude of the difference in threshold estimated by the adaptive and clinical procedures or for the differences among the psychometric functions.

Effect of signal-temporal uncertainty in children and adults: Tone detection in noise or a random-frequency masker

“…Previous findings indicate that adults tend to adopt a conservative (strict) response criterion for indicating that a signal is present in this type of paradigm (e.g., Marshall and Jesteadt, 1986). In order to examine age-related differences in response bias for different temporal and masker conditions in the present study, criterion estimates were calculated for individual listeners.…”

“…The effect of bias on thresholds measured in quiet appears to be relatively small (e.g., Marshall and Jesteadt, 1986). For example, Marshall and Jesteadt (1986) compared adults' thresholds measured in quiet for the standard clinical procedure and for two psychophysical methods: A two-interval, forced-choice adaptive procedure and a Yes/No procedure with undefined observation intervals. Response bias had a minimal effect (1.2 dB) on threshold obtained with the Yes/No procedure, despite listeners being more conservative.…”

Automatic screening and detection of threshold fine structure

“…2.3). This comparison focussed on the shape of the threshold curves, since tracking procedures such as FINESS are not expected to yield precise estimates of the absolute threshold due to the variability of the subjects' internal threshold criteria (Marshall & Jesteadt, 1986). If, for instance, a subject only presses the response button when they are absolutely sure that they clearly perceive the test tone, the measured threshold values will lie slightly above the absolute threshold.…”

Release from informational masking in children: Effect of multiple signal bursts

“…For example, adults' thresholds for a fixedfrequency, pure-tone signal can be elevated by as much as 50 dB when the spectral content of a multi-tonal masker is varied on each presentation ͑e.g., Neff and Green, 1987͒. One advantage of using this approach is that measures of masking release can be obtained efficiently by estimating thresholds using multiple-interval, forced-choice adaptive procedures not likely to be influenced by the placement of the listener's response criterion ͑e.g., Marshall and Jesteadt, 1986͒. The mechanisms responsible for informational masking are not fully understood, but a failure of sound source determination appears to be responsible for a substantial portion of the masking observed in these conditions ͑e.g., Kidd et al, 1994Kidd et al, , 2002Durlach et al, 2003͒. Evidence supporting this hypothesis is provided by studies that have manipulated stimulus properties thought to promote sound source determination, including spatial separation, asynchronous temporal onsets, and dissimilar temporal modulations ͑e.g., Darwin and Carlyon, 1995;Yost, 1997͒.…”