Quantization error in clinical pure-tone audiometry.
The current clinical procedure for pure-tone audiometry was analysed for statistical measurement errors. Theoretically, the root-mean-square (RMS) error in a single threshold measurement is always greater than the standard deviation (SD) of measured intra-individual test-retest differences, divided by the square root of two. The RMS error includes an additional quantization component, caused by the finite step size between presented signal levels. In Monte-Carlo simulations with 2-dB and 5-dB steps the quantization error was negligible compared with other errors. Therefore, the single-test RMS error can be estimated with sufficient accuracy from the test-retest SD. The simulated single-test RMS error decreased from about 2.7 dB about 2.3 dB when the audiometric step size was reduced from 5 dB to 2 dB. Hearing thresholds appeared to be about 1.7 dB better with 2-dB steps than with 5-dB steps.
Leijon
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Department of Information Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D016011:Normal Distribution; D015203:Reproducibility of Results