Reliability of Measures Obtained with the Zwislocki Acoustic Bride

Tom W. Tillman, Peter J. Dallos, Thomas Kuruvilla

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

An acousticimpedance bridge designed by Zwislocki recently became available. The bridge allows the specification of the absolute acoustic impedance of the human car by yielding independent measures of acoustic reactance and resistance. This measurement of absolute impedance requires an accurate measure of the volume of the external ear. The testretest reliability of volume measures, as well as those of resistance and reactance, was examined. Three examiners obtained volume measures by using two different techniques as well as measures of resistance and compliance (reactance) on 10 subjects in test and retest sessions. Results suggest that measurement of the volume of the ear canal is sufficiently repeatable to allow this procedure to serve as a first step in the measurement of absolute impedance with the Zwislocki bridge. Testretest reliability of the compliance measures was also high. Testretest measures of resistance yielded low correlations in spite of high interexaminer correlation in both sessions. It is postulated that unknown factors caused a real but nonsystematic shift in acoustic resistance over subjects, thus destroying testretest correlation while preserving high interexaminer correlation. Further investigation is required to establish the validity of this hypothesis, but it can be concluded that the bridge itself is a reliable measuring device.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)582-588
Number of pages7
Journaljournal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume36
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1964
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics

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