불쾌레벨(uncomfortable level, UCL)은 일반적으로 음이 불편할 정도로 크게 들리기 시작하는 레벨을 말한다. 이는 크게 두가지 목적으로 측정하는데 하나는 특히 비선 형증폭기의 압축비율(compression ratio, CR), 최대출력 (OSPL 90)을 효과적으로 결정하기 위하여 사용할 수 있 다(신은영 외, 2008). 다른 하나는 누가현상(recruitment) 에 근거하여 난청의 유형을 파악하는 진단 목적으로 사용 할 수 있다. 효과적인 보청기의 적합 및 평가와 비정상적 인 음량증가지각을 갖는 사람들과의 비교를 위하여 먼저 건청인을 대상으로 시행한 정상적인 음량증가지각의 측정 이 필요하다.
The present study was to evaluate the differences with procedures, and to investigate test-retest reliability of category loudness scaling. Ten subjects(20 ears), 19~23 year-old, with normal hearing and no sound tolerance problems were participated in the session which was held twice, with a week interval. Pure tone of 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4 kHz were presented by using TDH- 39 headphone and ascending method in 5 dB steps from threshold. Nine scaling categories from very soft to painfully loud (Hawkins et al., 1987), and seven categories of loudness ranging from very soft to uncomfortably loud (Cox et al., 1997) were used. The UCL showed lower 10-20 dB but SD was recorded larger than normative data from different country. There were no differences of UCL according to the pure tone frequencies. The test-retest differences of category loudness scaling were investigated within 5 dB. There were differences within 10 dB in different procedures of MCL and UCL. These data might be useful in hearing aid fitting and the rehabilitation.
INTRODUCTION MATERIALS AND METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSIONS CONCLUSIONS
