The clinical audiologist uses masking noise quite often during routine clinical audiometric assessment of speech and pure-tone thresholds.

For each clinical audiometric test paradigm, think about how masking is used and when it is appropriate to use masking, and identify why masking is used to obtain thresholds.

(a) Why is auditory masking necessary? Hint: think of the anatomy and physiology of the auditory and (especially) the retrocochlear auditory pathways to answer this question.

(b) When is masking noise used in speech audiometry? Name and describe at least one example illustrating your rationale.

(c) When is masking noise used in pure-tone air-conduction audiometry? Name and describe at least one example illustrating your rationale.

(d) When is masking noise used in pure-tone bone-conduction audiometry? Name and describe at least one example illustrating your rationale.