ON THE RELATION BETWEEN HEARING SENSITIVITY AND OTOACOUSTIC EMISSIONS

The auditory literature suggests that ears having spontaneous otoacous tic emissions (SOAEs) should also evidence overall better hearing in t he quiet than ears with no SOAEs, but no direct tests of this presumed relationship have been made. Accordingly, hearing sensitivity was mea sured in both males and females having either no SOAEs or at least fou r SOAEs in the right ear. Averaged across frequencies, the hearing of the subjects with SOAEs was about 3 dB better, in both ears, than the hearing of the subjects with no SOAEs. In accord with past findings, s ensitivity was also significantly better in right ears than left. Howe ver, the common finding of better hearing in females than males did no t emerge, suggesting that this difference may exist only when the sex difference in SOAE prevalence is not taken into account. The existence of a direct relationship between hearing sensitivity in the quiet and the presence of SOAEs suggests that a common mechanism may be respons ible for both.