Background: Evaluation tools are lacking for the identification of patients exhibiting pseudotinnitus.
It was hypothesized that tinnitus loudness traces might show a separation between
continuous and pulsed tones for participants exhibiting pseudotinnitus, that is, the
“type V” pattern shown for threshold tracking among participants exhibiting pseudohypacusis.
It was further hypothesized that tinnitus loudness tracking might reveal unreliable
tinnitus loudness matches among participants exhibiting pseudotinnitus due to their
lack of an internal tinnitus standard.
Purpose: To determine whether a tinnitus loudness tracking pattern exists for participants
exhibiting pseudotinnitus.
Research Design: Nonrandomized posttest-only control design. The experimental group participants were
those without tinnitus, and the control group participants were those with tinnitus.
Study Sample: There were 86 participants, including 45 with tinnitus and 41 without tinnitus. The
participants' hearing varied from normal to severe hearing losses by pure-tone average
at 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz.
Intervention: Participants without tinnitus were asked to act as if they had tinnitus and to complete
tinnitus loudness matching as if they were trying to convince the test (or computer)
that they had tinnitus.
Data Analysis: t-tests
Results: There were no statistically significant differences between individuals with tinnitus
and participants acting out pseudotinnitus for any of six measures: (1) continuous
tone tinnitus loudness tracking; (2) pulsed tone tinnitus loudness tracking; (3) differences
between continuous and pulsed tone tinnitus loudness tracking; (4) continuous tone
excursion width; (5) pulsed tone excursion width; and (6) differences between continuous
and pulsed tone excursion width.
Conclusions: Tinnitus loudness tracking does not appear to hold promise as a clinical tool for
the identification of participants exhibiting pseudotinnitus.
Key Words
Tinnitus loudness perception
