TEMPORARY THRESHOLD SHIFT INDUCED BY MUSIC

Three groups of young people, in all 10 males and 11 females, with dif ferent music listening habits listened to their own choice of music fr om a portable cassette player for one hour. The sound pressure level f rom the music was measured with a probe-provided miniature microphone in the external auditory canal close to the tympanic membrane. The tem porary threshold shift induced by the music, as well as by 1/3-octave band noise, was registered with Bekesy audiometry. The females had sig nificantly more temporary threshold shift than the males after noise-e xposure. Most subjects had only discrete temporary threshold shifts af ter one hour of listening to music, in spite of 91-97 dB listening lev els. There were no significant differences in listening levels or musi c-induced threshold shifts between genders, although such differences were found between groups with different listening habits.