Demonstration of binaural advantage in audiometric test rooms

Binaural advantage was measured for 12 normally hearing subjects in a typical rectangular audiometric test room with a loudspeaker located in each corner. Four different loudspeaker configurations for presentation of signal and competition were evaluated. The results indicated that a configuration in which uncorrelated competition was delivered from both sides of the subject while the signal was presented from a 0 degree azimuth was the most resistant to interaural asymmetries resulting from the room geometry and produced the most consistent binaural advantages. Binaural advantage was then measured using this loudspeaker configuration for 15 hearing-impaired individuals wearing hearing aids. Although the group results indicate a mean unaided binaural advantage only slightly smaller than seen in the normal hearers, when hearing aids were worn an interaural asymmetry in a signal-to-competition ratio developed that reduced the clinical usefulness of the data for individuals. This outcome emphasizes that a valid clinical demonstration of binaural advantage is critically dependent on interaural symmetry in signal-to-competition ratios for both aided and unaided tests. Such symmetry may be difficult to achieve in a typical audiometric test room.