Underwater hearing: A review

In view of the prevalence of hearing loss among commercial divers and the absence of widely accepted noise exposure limits for occupational underwater use, a review of studies of underwater hearing thresholds and hearing mechanisms was undertaken with the ultimate aim of developing noise exposure limits. Previous studies of underwater hearing thresholds appear to show that the ear underwater is less sensitive than compared with air. However, a surprisingly wide range of values for underwater hearing thresholds was reported, for example 35-90 dB SPL(re 20 MuPa) at 0.25 kHz and 30-80 dB at 1 kHz. No representative single threshold curve can be extracted with any validity. Possible reasons for such a wide scatter of results include high underwater ambient noise levels which may have masked the subjects underwater hearing thresholds, ill defined stimuli and underwater sound fields, and variable and informal audiometric methodology. Previous authors have proposed three somewhat interlinked theories to explain how sound is transmitted from water to the cochlea. These involve: the 'auricular' conduction pathway, the bone conduction pathway, and the dual conduction pathway. Up to this day, no one pathway has been shown to predominate, and all of them have been poorly evaluated. It is also possible that the presence of air bubbles in the ear canal and increased water depth may have significant effects on underwater hearing thresholds. These effects may be dependent on the underwater hearing mechanism. Again, the studies reviewed give conflicting results and no valid conclusion can be drawn. It is apparent that further experimental studies are required to establish underwater hearing thresholds and to provide an understanding of the mechanisms of hearing underwater. These should be based upon suitable facilities and methodologies for testing hearing thresholds underwater following modern and scientific audio metric practice.