Investigations of Auditory Filters Based Excitation Patterns for Assessment of Noise Induced Hearing Loss

TL;DR

This study explores auditory filter-based excitation patterns to assess noise-induced hearing loss, proposing new metrics and comparing their effectiveness with simulated noise types.

Contribution

It introduces two novel excitation patterns derived from auditory filters and proposes new noise hazard metrics for NIHL assessment.

Findings

Both EPs reflect cochlear responses to different noise types.

Velocity EP shows a frequency shift with Gaussian noise.

EPs accurately reflect input noise frequencies.

Abstract

Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) as one of major avoidable occupational related health issues has been studied for decades. To assess NIHL, the excitation pattern (EP) has been considered as one of mechanisms to estimate movements of basilar membrane (BM) in cochlea. In this study, two auditory filters, dual resonance nonlinear (DRNL) filter and rounded-exponential (ROEX) filter, have been applied to create two EPs, referring as the velocity EP and the loudness EP, respectively. Two noise hazard metrics are also proposed based on the developed EPs to evaluate hazardous levels caused by different types of noise. Moreover, Gaussian noise and pure-tone noise have been simulated to evaluate performances of the developed EPs and noise metrics. The results show that both developed EPs can reflect the responses of BM to different types of noise. For Gaussian noise, there is a frequency shift between the velocity EP and the loudness EP. For pure-tone noise, both EPs can reflect the frequencies of input noise accurately. The results suggest that both EPs can be potentially used for assessment of NIHL.