Abstract

This study presented a quantitative evaluation index related to sound response for diagnosis of middle ear condition. The signal transmission paths for human perception of sound are divided into bone conduction and air conduction, respectively, depending on the path through which vibration and sound are transmitted. The components of auditory system that can affect the sound signal variability include temporal bone, ear canal, eardrum, and middle ear cavity. The specific acoustic impedances were obtained through simple geometric model of the auditory components, and the sound transmission mechanism was implemented through the outer-middle ear circuit model. The frequency range corresponding to the resonance characteristics of each components were calculated. The response difference for the medium of middle ear was confirmed by deriving frequency response function between the input sound and the output sound in the frequency domain through the transfer function method. The reliability of the algorithm was confirmed through the ROC curve, and individual evaluation indexes were derived according to the priority factor between classification accuracy and error rate.