Abstract:
The present study was taken with the aim to compare the speech evoked P300, SNR-50 in normal hearing individuals with and without tinnitus and additionally to estimate the relationship between the SNR-50 and P300 parameters (Amplitude and Latency). Forty participants where 20 had normal hearing sensitivity with tinnitus (Group I) and the rest 20 had normal hearing sensitivity without tinnitus (Group II) were included in the study. Basic audiological evaluations such as pure-tone audiometry, speech audiometry, immittance evaluation, distortion product otoacoustic emissions evaluation were carried out using standard clinical procedures.
The P300 response was recorded using /ba/ (frequent) and /da/ (infrequent) stimuli. The SNR-50 was estimated using QuickSIN material. Results showed significant difference in the P300 amplitudes and SNR-50, whereas no significant difference in the P300 latencies between the two groups. The participants who had normal hearing sensitivity without tinnitus had higher P300 amplitudes and SNR-50 compared to participants who had normal hearing sensitivity without tinnitus. It also showed no significant relationship between SNR-50 and P300 parameters in both the groups of participants.
