Continuous versus pulsed tones in audiometry.

The purpose of this study was to compare auditory thresholds obtained for continuous and pulsed tones in listeners with normal hearing. Auditory thresholds, test-retest reliability, false-positive responses, and listener preference were compared for both signals. Hearing thresholds and test-retest reliability were comparable for the 2 signals, and there were no significant differences in the number of false positives or the number of presentations required to reach threshold. Listener preference, however, indicated that pulsed tones were preferred over continuous tones by 67% of the listeners when listening to low-level or high-frequency tones. These findings, coupled with previous reports demonstrating the benefits of using automatically pulsed tones in threshold assessment for listeners with tinnitus, support the general use of pulsed tones in clinical audiometry.