Purpose The goal of this study was to establish the perceptual underpinnings of the terms that are commonly used by patients when describing the quality of their tinnitus. Method Using a free-classification method, 15 subjects with normal hearing placed 60 different tinnitus-like sounds into similarity clusters on a grid. Multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and acoustic analyses were used to determine the acoustic underpinnings of the perceptual dimensions and perceptual similarity. Results Multidimensional scaling revealed three different perceptual dimensions (pitch, modulation depth + spectral elements, and envelope rate). Hierarchical clustering revealed five explicit similarity clusters: tonal, steady noise, pulsatile, low-frequency fluctuating noise, and high-frequency fluctuating. Conclusions Results are consistent with tinnitus perceptions falling into a small set of categories that can be characterized by their acoustics. As a result, there is the potential to develop different tools to assess tinnitus using a variety of different sounds.

中文翻译：

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耳鸣类声音的感知维度

目的本研究的目的是建立患者在描述耳鸣质量时常用术语的感知基础。 方法使用自由分类方法，15 名听力正常的受试者将 60 种不同的类似耳鸣的声音放入网格上的相似簇中。使用多维尺度、层次聚类和声学分析来确定感知维度和感知相似性的声学基础。 结果多维缩放揭示了三个不同的感知维度（音调、调制深度+频谱元素和包络率）。层次聚类揭示了五个明确的相似簇：音调、稳定噪声、脉动、低频波动噪声和高频波动。 结论结果与耳鸣感知一致，耳鸣感知可分为一小部分类别，这些类别可以通过其声学特性来表征。因此，有可能开发出不同的工具来使用各种不同的声音来评估耳鸣。