PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a hearing sense threshold level estimation apparatus capable of substantially reducing the time required for ABR examination with a high degree of accuracy being maintained, confirmation of waveform disappearance being not necessarily needed.SOLUTION: A hearing sense threshold level estimation apparatus comprises: a noise removal unit for extracting and removing the noise components contained in the waveform data representing potential waveforms obtained from a subject with sound stimulation applied thereon and a threshold level determination unit for determining an estimation value for the hearing sense threshold level on the basis of the presence or absence of amplitude of the V wave component in the noise-removed waveform data from which noise components have been removed by the noise removal unit. The threshold level determination unit determines, from the amplitude value of the V wave component, the specified quadratic polynomial approximate expression indicating the hearing sense threshold level characteristic for a stimulation sound pressure, with respect to the noise-removed waveform data. The threshold level determination unit further determines a linear approximate expression indicating an area approximatable by the linear approximate expression among the hearing sense threshold level curves by the quadratic polynomial approximate expression, and estimates the hearing sense threshold level on the basis of the linear approximate expression.COPYRIGHT: (C)2015,JPO&INPIT【課題】 必ずしも波形消失の確認を行う必要がなく、高精度でありながら、ABRの検査所要時間を大幅に短縮することができる聴覚閾値推定装置を提供する。【解決手段】 聴覚閾値推定装置は、音刺激が与えられた被験者から取得した電位波形を示す波形データに含まれるノイズ成分を抽出して除去するノイズ除去部と、ノイズ除去部によってノイズ成分が除去されたノイズ除去後波形データにおけるV波成分の振幅の有無に基づいて聴覚閾値の推定値を判定する閾値判定部とを備える。閾値判定部は、ノイズ除去後波形データについて、V波成分の振幅値から刺激音圧に対する聴覚閾値特性を示す所定の2次多項近似式を求め、この2次多項近似式による聴覚閾値曲線のうち1次式によって近似できる領域を表す1次近似式をさらに求め、この1次近似式に基づいて聴覚閾値を推定する。【選択図】 図5
