Comparison of Psychometric Functions Measured Using Remote Testing and Laboratory Testing

Abstract

The use of remote testing to collect behavioral data has been on the rise, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we present psychometric functions for a commonly used speech corpus obtained in remote testing and laboratory testing conditions on young normal hearing listeners in the presence of different types of maskers. Headphone use for the remote testing group was checked by supplementing procedures from prior literature using a Huggins pitch task. Results revealed no significant differences in the measured thresholds using the remote testing and laboratory testing conditions for all the three masker types. Also, the thresholds measured obtained in these two conditions were strongly correlated for a different group of young normal hearing listeners. Based on the results, excellent outcomes on auditory threshold measurements where the stimuli are presented both at levels lower than and above an individual’s speech-recognition threshold can be obtained by remotely testing the listeners.