Effects of sophistication on four tests for nonorganic hearing loss

Three groups of 15 normal-hearing subjects were asked to simulate a hearing loss in one ear. Each subject was then tested on four measurements often used in determining the presence of pseudohypacusis (a comparison of the SRT to the pure-tone average, ascending vs descending pure-tone tests, the Stenger test, and pure-tone delayed auditory feedback). Results showed that as practice and sophistication on each of the procedures increased, there tended to be more improvement in the subjects' ability to "beat" some of the tests than others.