1. Field
The following description relates to a method and apparatus to test hearing ability and a hearing aid apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hearing tests are classified into a subjective hearing test and an objective hearing test. According to the subjective test, an examinee's voluntary response to auditory stimulus is checked, and hearing ability of the examinee is determined based on the response. Therefore, in the case of the subjective hearing test, a subjective of the examinee may intervene in the response to an auditory stimulus, and the test result would be completely dependent on the subjective response of the examinee. On the contrary, in the case of the objective test, an electrical response of the examinee's body to an auditory stimulus is detected by an instrument to determine hearing ability of the examinee. Therefore, an emotion of an examinee does not intervene in the objective hearing test. Thus, in comparison with the subjective hearing test, the reliability of the objective hearing test is higher, and a test result may be quantitatively obtained. Examples of the subjective hearing test include pure-tone audiometry, speech reception threshold (SRT), and word recognition score (WRT). Examples of the objective hearing test include otoacoustic emission (OAE), electrocochleography (ECoG), and auditory brainstem response (ABR).
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds