title: Pure tone-spondee threshold relationships in functional hearing loss: a hypothesis.
abstract: A hypothesis is offered to account for the fact that in functional hearing loss, spondee threshold is frequently significantly lower than the pure-tone average. The hypothesis has three basic components: (1) that patients with functional hearing loss use a loudness criterion in making response decisions to suprathreshold stimuli; (2) that, at suprathreshold levels, pure tones and spondee words appear equally loud at equal sound pressure levels, and (3) that calibration values employed in pure-tone and speech audiometry contribute to the aberrant speech-pure tone relationship. Factors that may confound the speech-pure tone relationship are discussed as are the clinical and research implication of the hypothesis.
mesh_terms: D001299:Audiometry / Q000379:methods*; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans