PAST法

耳鳴の新しい聴覚心理的検査法

抄録

A new approach named PAST (Psychoacoustic Scale of Tinnitus) method has been developed for psychoacoustic evaluation of tinnitus using a microcomputer based device. Pairs of stimulus sounds, the acoustic variable of which correlates dominantly with the directing psychoacoustic characteristic, are successively presented to a patient to let him select the sound resembling the tinnitus more closely. From his responses, a psychoacoustic scale, that is the PAST value, is constructed to represent the dissimilarity of each sound to the tinnitus in reference to the directing characteristic. And then the acoustic and corresponding psychoacoustic characteristics of the tinnitus are estimated from the sound with the minimum dissimilarity on the PAST value. Based on the results of a patient, the capability of the method to direct the pitch, loudness and timbre of the tinnitus was indicated. The varidity of the principle and the usefulness in the clinical application were also verified.