Psychophysical Response for Intensity Variation in Pure Tone Sound - Attention & Retention Assessment in Human Beings

Background/Objectives: Human brain learns from conditioning. Also learning is an inherent activity exhibited by every human being. A better training/conditioning leads to a better learning and in remembering as well. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The present work focuses on the assessment of behavioural response for a predefined set of single tone sound with varying intensity after being conditioned for 20 days and after a break period of 7 days and assessing the same on day 28 for the retention based behavioural response. A pure tone complex of 1 KHz, 500 milliseconds duration was used and the test was conducted in the morning and evening in a noise free environment. A total of 44 subjects, both males and females of 20–30 years of no known auditory pathological history were considered. Findings: The results showed a distinct betterment of the auditory perception over the training period hinting at the attention abilities of the subjects. After a break of seven days, substantial information gained during the training phase was found to be retained thereby proving the retention abilities of the individuals. The presently obtained results provide a cue towards the learning abilities of human beings with gradual training and also to the extent to which the human beings can retain the aspects learnt during the training sessions. The results also demonstrated that the males have a better attention as well as retention abilities than females. Application/Improvements: The presently designed protocol is successfully able to assess the attention and retention based abilities of the individuals. This method can be extended to assess the auditory temporal resolution of professionals in case of basket ball and table tennis sports and also to assess the deterioration of the hearing perception of traffic police and the workers of fabrication and chemical industries.