@Samir You mean my audiogram result?
They wanted to do a lot of loud tests, but I don't know the name of them. I remember it was tympanometry, and other tests that can reach up to 90 dB.
I only did the extended audiogram and LDL (loudness discomfort levels).
No, it was my attempt at making a joke. But what I meant to say is that extended hearing tests are not readily available for anyone at any local audiologist office, even when the testing equipment is capable of it. The reason you got one is that you were taking part in a research study where they decided it would be a good idea to go beyond the 8 kHz limit.
Why most audiologists will normally only test your hearing up to 8 kHz is because that's where the upper bound of the human speech is. This is the so called "speech banana" you can somteimes see on an audiogram. Next time you do a hearing test, you can ask your audiologist to overlay your audiogram with a banana before it's printed out!
Although human speech (banana included) flactuates somewhat, depending on the definition (vowels 8 kHz vs. consonants 6 kHz), it is generally said that 8 kHz is the upper bound of human speech. The is what an audiologist will tell you, and that's not a lie, but there is more to this though that they will not tell you. The less obvious reason why audiologists don't go above 8 kHz when doing a hearing test, even when they have the right equipment for it (not all of them do unfortunately), is that most hearing aids don't have the capability to amplify sounds beyond 8 to 10 kHz. So their objective, as audiologists, is to see if they can fit you with a suitable hearing aid. Their job is not to do scientific testing of your hearing ability. And that is more telling than anything about this whole "industry".
Thanks for sharing the diagram though! From the looks of your diagram, you have a very good hearing. The "U" shaped marks represent hearing levels with masking if I recall correctly. I can see from the diagram also that they at least have the capability to do a number of other tests:
- DLI
- QuickSIN
- Bekesy
- LIPread
- Tinnitus
- Ljudstyrka - skalning
Differential Limen for Intensity
The perceptual characteristics of tinnitus are usually assessed by a matching procedure, where loudness and pitch of an external sound are matched to those of the tinnitus percept. The duration discrimination test (DDT), differential limen for intensity (DLI) and differential limen for frequency (DLF) are relatively simple psychoacoustic methods of measuring differential sensitivity.
Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6750796/
Speech In Noise
SIN refers to Speech In Noise. But here, QuickSIN refers to a software product by Interacoustics. Which reveals that the lab has access to testing equipment made by Interacoustics. Nice!
Difficulty with hearing in background noise is a common complaint among hearing aid users. Therefore, the measurement of SNR loss (signal-to-noise ratio loss) is important because a person's ability to understand speech in noise cannot be reliably predicted from the pure tone audiogram. The QuickSIN test was developed to provide a quick estimate of SNR loss. A list of six sentences with five key words per sentence is presented in four-talker babble noise. The sentences are presented at pre-recorded signal-to-noise ratios which decrease in 5-dB steps from 25 (very easy) to 0 (extremely difficult). The SNRs used are: 25, 20, 15, 10, 5 and 0, encompassing normal to severely impaired performance in noise.
Source:
https://www.interacoustics.com/guides/test/audiometry-tests/quick-speech-in-noise-quicksin
Békésy
Békésy audiometry, also called decay audiometry - audiometry in which the subject controls increases and decreases in intensity as the frequency of the stimulus is gradually changed so that the subject traces back and forth across the threshold of hearing over the frequency range of the test. The test is quick and reliable, so [it] was frequently used in military and industrial contexts.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiometry#Subjective_audiometry
LIPread
Lipreading test? I don't how or why you would measure someone's ability to lipread. Perhaps LIP means something else in this context?
Tinnitus
I'm not sure what this is used for. Some note taking? Maybe it's for tinnitus questionnaires like Tinnitus Handicap Inventory? It may even contain the obtained results of the patient, for each patient had to fill out a length questionnaire and send it to KI by mail. Upon which they then selected patients for additional lab testing.
Ljudstyrka - skalning
Ljudstyrka literally means sound strength. Skalning means scaling. So this is likely where they put in the data points for LDL (Loudness Discomfort Levels). This is a scary one, one I think people with tinnitus should reconsider doing. Note that they are often administered as part of or immediately following a Tympanometry (Greek for "drum measure", i.e. pressure testing).
The loudness discomfort level (LDL) is the level (intensity of sound) at which a patient reports sound to be uncomfortably loud.
Loudness discomfort levels (LDL) may also be called uncomfortable loudness levels (UCLs) or threshold of discomfort (TDs).
It should be noted that the loudness discomfort levels are variable between individuals, with a normal variation of about 20 dB. This means that one person may have a LDL of 90dB and another may have a LDL of 110dB at the same frequency.
Source:
https://www.everydayhearing.com/hearing/audiology/loudness-discomfort-levels/