Wideband impedance measurement in the human ear canal; In vivo study on 32 subjects

TL;DR

This study presents wideband impedance measurements of the human ear canal in 32 subjects, utilizing in vivo MRI data and theoretical modeling to analyze impedance characteristics across demographics and compare with standard ear simulators.

Contribution

It introduces a novel in vivo measurement approach for ear impedance up to 20kHz combined with MRI-based ear canal geometries and theoretical propagation modeling.

Findings

Mean human ear impedance and variability across population

Differences in impedance by gender and age

Comparison with IEC711 ear simulator

Abstract

The human ear canal couples the external sound field to the eardrum and the solid parts of the middle ear. Therefore, knowledge of the acoustic impedance of the human ear is widely used in the industry to develop audio devices such as smartphones, headsets, and hearing aids. In this study acoustic impedance measurements in the human ear canal of 32 adult subjects is presented. Wideband measurement techniques developed specifically for this purpose enable impedance measurement to be obtained in the full audio band up to 20kHz. Full ear canal geometries of all subjects are also available from the first of its kind in vivo based magnetic resonance imaging study of the human outer ear. These ear canal geometries are used to obtain individual ear moulds of all subjects and to process the data. By utilizing a theoretical Webster's horn description, the measured impedance is propagated in each ear canal to a common theoretical reference plane across all subjects. At this plane the mean human impedance and standard deviation of the population is found. The results are further demographically divided by gender and age and compared to a widely used ear simulator (the IEC711 coupler).