Home

Hearing Loss Simulator

Font:
Troubleshooting

Set up your sound first. Your computer's settings change what you hear.

Tell me more, and troubleshooting sound on your computer
Sound from:

Both recordings were written to include speech sounds at low, middle and high pitches, so you can hear what each hearing loss does to them. The story (45 seconds) is the quickest way to hear the difference as you move the faders. The speech sounds sampler (about 2 minutes) walks through low, middle and high speech sounds one group at a time.

  1. Choose an mp3, mp4, or any other sound or video file from this computer.
  2. Press the play button under the video.

Faders set:

Both ears: one fader at each pitch, and it moves both ears together.

Separate ears: two marks at each pitch, drawn the way an audiogram draws them. A red O is the right ear and a blue X is the left ear. Drag each one on its own. When they sit on the same spot, the X is on top: drag it away to reach the O.

Separate ear settings are meant to be used with headphones. Through speakers, both ears hear both sides.

Degree of hearing loss Click one to turn it on. Click it again to go back to Normal.

Different in each ear Use headphones. A red O is the right ear, a blue X is the left. Drag either one to adjust.

Shape of hearing loss Which pitches are hit hardest. Clicking one also lights the degree it usually comes with. Click a different degree to slide the shape to that level.

Audiogram of Familiar Sounds
Mystery hearing loss: the faders are hidden

Play a sound to see its pitches here

Sound bars. Each bar is one pitch, lined up with the chart above. Gray is the sound being played. Purple is what gets through the hearing loss. Where you see gray with no purple, that part of the sound is lost.

How loud is the sound in real life? Set this with the green Sound level tag on the left edge of the chart. The sound you play stands in for a real-life sound that loud. Slide the tag down to hear how much of a louder sound, such as shouting, still gets through. It never plays louder than the original.
More true to life
What do these do? Background noise adds the steady hum of a busy room to whatever is playing. Ringing is heard on top of everything; the faders cannot remove it. Unclear speech smears neighboring pitches together, the way a damaged inner ear does, so speech stays muddy even when it is loud enough. Hearing aid adds back about half of the loss at each pitch, a long-used rule of thumb for fitting one. Its result is drawn on the chart as a dashed line marked A. It makes sounds louder but does not clear up unclear speech.

How to use the simulator

  1. Start a sound. At the top, choose a file, YouTube, or the microphone, and get it playing.
  2. Choose a hearing loss. Click a degree, a shape, or one of each. Clicking a shape shows its typical form and lights the degree it usually comes with. Click a different degree and the shape keeps its outline but slides up or down the chart to that level. Click a lit shape to turn it off. Click a lit degree to go back to Normal.
  3. Fine-tune with the faders. Drag a fader down for more loss at that pitch. The line across the middle of the fader marks its exact value, and a label shows the pitch and the number while you point at it or move it. For small steps, click a fader and press the arrow keys: 5 dB a press, or 1 dB with Shift held down.
  4. Try louder sounds. The green Sound level tag on the left edge of the chart, with its green line across the chart, is not a hearing-loss fader. It sets how loud the sound you are playing is meant to be in real life. Drag it down the dB scale to hear what still gets through when the same sound is a shout or a siren. Wherever a fader sits below the green line, that pitch cannot be heard.
  5. Make the ears different. Choose Separate ears next to "Faders set", or click a "Different in each ear" button. Each pitch then has a red O for the right ear and a blue X for the left ear, and each one moves only its own ear. Separate ear settings are meant to be used with headphones; through speakers, both ears hear both sides.
  6. Set the volume first. Follow the yellow box at the top of the page: play the sample conversation and set the volume so it sounds like people talking across a table.
  7. Test your own high-pitch hearing. On the right side of the chart, the row of buttons marked 9K to 20K each play a pure tone at that pitch (9K means 9,000 Hz) for a few seconds. The first time, a sound check asks whether you can hear a plain beep, to make sure the computer's sound is on. The tones do not go through the faders. Whether you hear one depends on your ears and also on your speakers or headphones: many laptop speakers and Bluetooth headphones cannot play the highest pitches. Keep the volume where it is; turning it up to hear a tone can hurt your ears even when the tone seems silent.

What this cannot show

The faders only make sounds quieter. Real hearing loss often also makes speech unclear even when it is loud enough. The "Unclear speech" setting above the chart gives a rough idea of that. One thing the simulator leaves out: with a real hearing loss, very loud sounds can feel just as loud as they do to anyone else.

Parts of the ear and types of hearing loss

The type of hearing loss depends on which part of the ear is not working.

Outer ear

Auricle (pinna), ear canal and tympanic membrane (eardrum). The auricle and ear canal collect sound and carry it to the tympanic membrane (eardrum).

Conductive hearing loss

Sound is blocked on the way in. Causes include earwax, an ear canal infection, an object in the canal, a hole in the tympanic membrane (eardrum), or an ear canal that did not form fully.

Middle ear

Three tiny bones called the ossicles (malleus, incus, stapes), the air space around them, and the Eustachian tube. They pass the sound's vibrations on to the inner ear.

Conductive hearing loss

The vibrations do not get through well. Causes include fluid from an ear infection, or bones that are stiff or damaged.

Inner ear

Cochlea, vestibular apparatus (balance), and the vestibulocochlear nerve, which carries signals to the brain. The cochlea turns vibrations into nerve signals.

Sensorineural hearing loss

The cochlea or the vestibulocochlear nerve is damaged. Causes include aging, loud noise, genetics, some illnesses and some medicines. It is usually permanent.

Mixed hearing loss is a conductive loss and a sensorineural loss in the same ear.

Conductive loss mostly makes sounds quieter, which is what this simulator does. Sensorineural loss also makes sounds less clear. Turn on "Unclear speech" above the chart for a rough idea of that.

What a hearing test looks like

This video shows the kind of test that produces an audiogram.

For teachers: share a setup with your class

You can hand students a link that opens this page already set to a hearing loss you chose.

  1. Set the page up the way you want students to hear it: the faders, both ears or separate ears, the green Sound level tag, and anything under "More true to life".
  2. Click
  3. Paste the link into your class page, an email or a slide.

Some ways to use it: one link for each hearing loss you want the class to compare; a link per station in a rotation; or a link to a real audiogram you have entered fader by fader, so everyone hears the same thing.

The link saves the settings, not the sound. Students still choose their own file, YouTube video or microphone, and should set their volume with the yellow box at the top first.

Words to know

Audiogram
The chart. A hearing test marks the quietest sound a person can hear at each pitch. The lower the marks, the greater the hearing loss. Any sound pictured above a person's line is too quiet for them to hear.
Frequency (Hz)
Pitch, measured in hertz. Low numbers are low pitches, like a hum. High numbers are high pitches, like birdsong or the sound "s". Each fader is one frequency.
Decibels (dB HL)
Loudness on the hearing-test scale. 0 dB HL is the quietest sound a typical young ear can hear. A fader at 60 means a sound at that pitch has to reach 60 dB before the person hears it.
Degree
How much hearing loss: Normal (0 to 20 dB), Mild (21 to 40), Moderate (41 to 70), Severe (71 to 90), Profound (91 to 120). When the loss is different at different pitches, the degree is named from the pure-tone average: the average of the losses at 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz.
Shape
How the loss changes from low pitches to high pitches. Audiologists call this the configuration. A "high-frequency loss" slopes down to the right. A "cookie bite" dips in the middle.
Speech banana
The yellow area on the chart. It shows where the sounds of speech fall when someone talks at a normal level.
Right and left ears
On an audiogram the right ear is drawn in red with circles and the left ear in blue with X's.

Sources