Korean J Otorhinolaryngol-Head Neck Surg.  2016 Dec;59(12):825-830. 10.3342/kjorl-hns.2016.59.12.825.

The Normative Value of Acceptable Noise Level Test for Korean Young Listeners with Normal Hearing and Its Relationship with Auditory Brainstem Response Latency

• An YH
• Lee ES
• Shim HJ

• KMID: 2368009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3342/kjorl-hns.2016.59.12.825

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Acceptable noise level (ANL) test has been developed as a method to measure the background noise acceptance when listening to speech presented at the most comfortable level. The study was aimed to investigate normal-hearing in young subjects' performance on ANL test and to evaluate the relationship between ANL and auditory evoked potentials.
SUBJECTS AND METHOD
Fifty-three young adults (23 male and 30 female; aged 21 to 39 years) with normal hearing participated in this study. ANL and auditory brainstem response (ABR) tests were administered to subjects who were certified by pure tone audiometry that they had normal hearing threshold.
RESULTS
The ANL test showed a large inter-subject variability in the acceptance of back-ground noise, ranging from -5 to 15 dB with the mean of ANL of 5.0±4.1 dB (4.5±4.5 dB in male and 5.4±3.8 dB in female). The mean most comfortable listening level was 35.2±5.3 dB, and the mean background noise level was 30.2±6.1 dB. There were no significant differences between male and female in the parameters of ANL test. There were no differences between the subjects with low versus high ANLs and ABR latencies.
CONCLUSION
We obtained the normative data of the ANL test administered to Korean young adults with normal hearing. There is no relationship between ANL and the latency of ABR in this study population.

Keyword

Auditory brainstem response; Hearing; Noise

MeSH Terms

Audiometry
Evoked Potentials, Auditory
Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem*
Female
Hearing*
Humans
Male
Methods
Noise*
Young Adult