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Our group works on the relation between sound-exposure and auditory performance. During the last decade we thoroughly tested the sense of hearing of about ten thousand persons, and we tried to determine their exposure to sound by a detailed questionnaire. Persons were grouped according to their occupation or their acoustic environment, such as orchestra musicians, office personnel, airline pilots, Tibetian nomads, university students, etc. One of the problems is aging of the ear, the mechanisms of which are not really understood, and its progression varies widely from person to person. Another important aspect is presented by noise-induced auditory damage, in itself a set of complicated relations that involves continuous noise, as well as rare events of high sound pressure (impulses). Using special procedures to analyse the data, we worked out group curves that are specific for the particular group. Comparing these results among the various groups gives good insight into their sense of hearing, and it also reveals strong training effects by the acoustic environment on the auditory performance, something that is totally new to current concepts. Some patterns can be “seen” and understood quite well, but so far not on a mathematical basis. Other patterns are hard to grasp. However, we assume that the application of pattern recognition can greatly improve the understanding of these fascinating relations. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) |
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