Temporal summation in hearing-impaired listeners.

A study was conducted to explore variations in auditory temporal summation in listeners with normal hearing, and impairment due to otosclerosis, sensori-neural hearing loss and acoustic neuroma. Using a two-interval forced-choice procedure the detection threshold was measured for one-third octave noise bands centered at either 1000 or 4000 Hz, in combination with eight signal durations (2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, and 640 ms). The results indicated that for normal listeners: (1) the slope of the function relating the detection threshold and the signal duration varied inversely with the frequency tested, and (2) the variability in the detection threshold was greater for 4000 Hz than for 1000 Hz. A comparison of performance across groups showed that the magnitude of the slope of the temporal integration function decreased as the site of lesion moved from middle ear to eighth nerve. For listeners with normal hearing and those with otosclerosis, temporal integration appeared to be incomplete at 640 ms.