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4.1. Head measurements
位置统计学差异。表示出的位置对频率有差异。在第一位置
表示出的装置和统计分析结果中列出的每一对具有较低听力的平均值比第二位置的行列
头大小有关联。
Please cite this article in press as: Hodges, M.L., McBride, M.E., Gender differences in bone conduction auditory signal processing: Communi-
cation equipment design implications, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.09.002
M.L. Hodges, M.E. McBride / International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics xxx (2011) 1e7
Fig. 3. AC mean rank of thresholds per frequency per gender. Fig. 4. Mastoid mean rank of threshold per frequency per gender.
Table 5 5.1. Head measurements
Mean rank and p-values for males and females at each location.
Male (n ¼ 15) Female (n ¼ 15) One explanation provided in the literature for gender differ-
Location p-Value
ences for AC hearing was differences in head size between males
Condyle 94.54 86.46 0.29
and females which resulted in males having slower ABRs. Aoyagi
Mastoid 101.57 79.43 0.01
Temple 97.71 83.29 0.06 et al. (1990) found the head size of males to be notably larger
Vertex 96.48 84.52 0.12
when measurements were taken from the nasion-to-inion, ear-to-
ear, and head circumference. The current study found similar
results for nasion-to-inion measures where females had smaller
measurements than males. The mastoid-to-mastoid measures did
ranks for the mastoid and condyle were not statistically different.
not show a statistical difference even though the average
The mean ranks for the mastoid were lower than those at the
measurement for females was slightly lower than those for males.
temple at 4000 Hz solely but were lower than the vertex at all
Since females overall had lower thresholds and smaller head size
frequencies tested. The mean ranks for the temple were lower than
(according to the nasion-to-inion measurements), the theory was
those at the vertex for all the frequencies above 1000 Hz.
that there may be some correlation between the hearing threshold
levels and head size considering these differences were found for
both AC and BC tests. However, the head measurement correlation
5. Discussion
analyses did not consistently support this theory for neither AC nor
BC.
Previous research has demonstrated that males have lower AC
hearing thresholds at low frequencies and females hear more
acutely at higher frequencies (Steinberg et al., 1940). The current 5.2. AC hearing gender differences
study sought to confirm that gender differences do indeed appear
in AC hearing and determine if similar differences are present in BC Based on previous studies, males were expected to have lower
hearing. In addition, this study sought to ascertain if the location of AC hearing thresholds in the 250 and 500 Hz octave bands while
the BC vibrator influenced any gender differences that might occur females were expected to have lower AC hearing thresholds in the
with BC hearing. The results of this study supported past results 4000, 6000, and 8000 Hz octave bands. Thresholds of males and#p#分页标题#e#
with a few exceptions. females were expected to be similar for the 1000 and 2000 Hz
Table 6
Mean rank and p-values for males and females at each location by frequency.
Please cite this article in press as: Hodges, M.L., McBride, M.E., Gender differences in bone conduction auditory signal processing: Communi-
cation equipment design implications, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.09.002
6 M.L. Hodges, M.E. McBride / International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics xxx (2011) 1e7
Again the difference in the mean ages of the participants in their
study and the current study as well as the fact that the Engdahl
et al.’s study used hearing impaired listeners could partially explain
the conflicting results.
5.3. BC hearing gender differences
Due to the fact that the route by which sounds travel to the
cochlea is believed to be the same for AC and BC hearing, it was
hypothesized that the gender differences found for AC hearing
would also be present for BC hearing. This study did find some#p#分页标题#e#
significant results for BC hearing but they differed somewhat from
the findings for AC hearing. For instance, for both AC and BC
hearing, females had significantly better hearing thresholds only at
8000 Hz; however, the BC hearing analysis also indicated that
females had significantly better hearing thresholds at 6000 Hz. No
gender differences were apparent at the lower frequencies for BC
hearing which was similar to the results found for AC hearing. Even
though gender differences were present for BC hearing, these
differences only appeared at the mastoid location. The next section
Fig. 5. Mean rank of threshold per frequency per location.
discusses this finding in more detail.
octave bands. While this study did confirm gender differences in AC 5.4. BC vibrator location
hearing, the frequencies where differences occurred varied from
the results of previous studies. For instance, females had a lower Previous research suggested that the condyle would provide the
mean rank threshold for all frequencies tested but the only lowest hearing threshold values for participants when compared to
frequency that resulted in a statistical difference was 8000 Hz, the mastoid, temple, and vertex. It was also believed that there
which is slightly different from past research. For example, the would be gender differences such that females would have lower
Engdahl et al.’s (2005) study found that females hear more acutely hearing thresholds at all locations tested due to their smaller head
at 3000 Hz and above. The difference over a wider frequency range sizes. The statistical tests indicated that there were differences in
may be due to the difference in the mean age of the participants the thresholds between the locations of the bone vibrator. As ex-
between past studies and this one. In Engdahl et al. (2005), the pected, the condyle resulted in the lowest mean rank threshold,
mean age for participants was 50.2 years while the current study followed by the mastoid, temple, and vertex, respectively. The
had a mean age of 20.5 years. In addition, the current study findings of this study are similar to those reported in McBride et al.
required all participants to have normal hearing which also might (2008b) which also found the condyle to be the most sensitive
explain why statistical differences only appeared at 8000 Hz location based on hearing thresholds.
because Engdahl et al.’s study also used subjects with abnormal The KruskaleWallis tests also indicated there were gender
hearing. It is possible that gender differences exist primarily at the differences at some of the locations. Females had lower mean rank
higher frequencies but as age increases the differences appear at hearing thresholds at all of the locations, but the only statistical
lower frequencies as well. This theory agrees with previous studies difference was found when the transducer was placed on the
such as one conducted by Murphy and Gates (1997) who suggested mastoid. Furthermore, it was initially thought that females would
a phenomenon called “gender reversal” where biological factors, hear more acutely at 4000, 6000, and 8000 Hz for all locations but
such as metabolic presbycusis, cause females to have a poorer when the bone vibrator was placed on the condyle, males actually
capacity to hear at frequencies below 1000 Hz. Additional research had a lower mean rank threshold for the 6000 Hz signal, although
is needed to investigate this theory further. not statistically lower. In addition, males had lower mean rank
This study did not find significant gender differences at the thresholds at 6000 and 8000 Hz when the vibrator was placed on
lower frequencies for males as found in Steinberg et al. (1940). The the vertex, but these findings were also not statistically significant.
findings of the current study partly agree with the findings of Thus the BC effects for the males compared to the females were not#p#分页标题#e#
Engdahl et al. (2005) who found that males had a lower threshold consistent with the AC effects. The only commonality was that
at 500 Hz but not 250 Hz. In the current study the males did not females had more acute BC hearing at the mastoid location for the
have a lower threshold at 250 Hz, which agreed with Engdahl et al. 8000 Hz octave band, just as with AC hearing.
(2005); however, they also did not have a lower threshold at
500 Hz. In fact the thresholds of the females were slightly lower at
6. Conclusion
both levels but the differences were not statistically significant.
The results from the current study only partially supported those
found in previous studies. Since the current studies used a younger
Table 7
频率位置工作组显然是不同的。样本人群所有的人有正常的听力，而以前
的 研究还包括年长者，其中一些有听力
位置对频率分别为显著不同 损失，差异必然会存在的。
Frequencies where location pairs were significantly different. sample population all of whom had normal hearing while previous
studies also included older participants some of which had hearing
Location pairs Frequencies were significantly different
loss, differences are bound to arise. Overall, the study did suggests the
CondyleeVertex 250, 500, 1000, 4000, 6000, 8000 Hz
presence of gender differences but whether these gender differences
CondyleeTemple 250, 500, 1000, 4000, 8000 Hz
are actually due to truly gender specific variations or anatomical
CondyleeMastoid 250, 1000 Hz
MastoideTemple 4000 Hz differences that are not necessarily gender specific requires further
MastoideVertex 250, 500, 1000, 4000, 6000, 8000 Hz
study. If various organizations indeed plan to replace traditional AC
TempleeVertex 4000, 6000, 8000 Hz
communication equipment with BC technology, it is important that
Please cite this article in press as: Hodges, M.L., McBride, M.E., Gender differences in bone conduction auditory signal processing: Communi-
cation equipment design implications, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.09.002
M.L. Hodges, M.E. McBride / International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics xxx (2011) 1e7 7
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Please cite this article in press as: Hodges, M.L., McBride, M.E., Gender differences in bone conduction auditory signal processing: Communi-
cation equipment design implications, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.09.002
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