Abstract
Onomatopoetic expressions for the test tones presented by pure-tone audiometer were investigated in 3 groups consisted of 37 normal hearing ears without tinnitus, 35 ears of sensorineural hearing loss without tinnitus and 46 ears with tinnitus. The test tones were pure-tones with the intensity of 10dB above hearing threshold at 7 frequencies with an octave step between 125Hz and 8kHz. The test tones were presented through a headphone and the subjects were asked to describe their subjective expressions of the nature of test tones by using onomatopoeias.
The results obtained were as follows:
1) The more various kinds of onomatopoeia were used as subjective expressions in the ears with sensorineural hearing loss and with tinnitus than in the normal hearing ears at each of 7 frequencies.
2) When the onomatopoeias and frequency of description at each of 7 frequencies were analysed, there were discrepancies among 3 groups.
3) When the frequencies of description of 6 representative onomatopoeias at each frequency was analysed, discrepancies were found among 3 groups.
Based upon these results, it was concluded that the onomatopoetic expressions for the presented test tones varied among these three groups.
