Tympanometric Changes at 226 Hz and 678 Hz Across 10 Trials and for Two Directions of Ear Canal Pressure Change

The influence that repeated tympanometric trials have on the aural-acoustic admittance characteristics of the middle-ear transmission system was studied in 24 young adults. The 226-Hz and 678-Hz data were generated by concurrently digitizing the conductance and admittance tympanograms at 25 daPa/s for both ascending and descending pressure directions. Ten successive trials for each frequency and direction of pressure change were made. Changes in admittance corrected for ear canal volume across the 10 tympanometric trials were computed. The results demonstrated that generally admittance increases as the number of trials increases. For many subjects, the complexity of the tympanometric configuration also increases across trials. The results from eight subjects with single-peaked 678-Hz tympanograms were compared with the results from eight subjects with notched 678-Hz tympanograms to explain the mean decrease in susceptance across tympanometric trials. Finally, the pressure peak locations of the conductance, susceptance, and admittance tympanograms were evaluated and are discussed. The effects that differences in peak pressure location have on the computed static admittance values are presented.