[AUDITORY] diotic (or binaural) audiometry

[Sam Mathias <samuel.mathias@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear List,

Is anyone aware of studies that have measured hearing thresholds for
tones presented over headphones to both ears at the same time, rather
than to each ear separately? Ideally, I'm interested in a comparison
between thresholds measured this way and thresholds measured via
traditional, monaural audiometry.

Here is the context: we are designing a study with a very limited time
window per participant to measure hearing thresholds. Hearing is not
the primary aim of the study and the hearing test won't be used
diagnostically (we don't want to determine whether someone has hearing
loss). We aren't interested interaural differences either. Most likely
we will calculate the better ear average (BEA). Intuitively, I feel
like someone's threshold for a tone presented to both ears will be the
same as their BEA or perhaps slightly lower if they are able to
combine the information presented to both ears. So I'm wondering
whether we could measure thresholds binaurally rather than monaurally
and collect the data in half the time.

In case there are no such studies, speculations are welcome :)

Thanks,
Sam