Seminars in Hearing Research

Date:  Thursday, April 16, 2026

Location: SMTH 208

Time: 12:00-1:00pm

Speaker: Joshua Alexander, Associate Professor, SLHS

Title: Beyond the Buzzer: What Acute Game-Day Noise Reveals About Early Auditory Change

Abstract: Building on Isabella Huddleston’s 4/9/26 presentation, which introduced a prospective within-subject study of the immediate auditory effects of exposure to Purdue basketball game noise, this follow-up talk will focus on the study’s updated statistical analyses and the additional insights they provide beyond the original presentation. In young adults with normal hearing tested before and within 90 minutes after game attendance, post-exposure pure-tone thresholds worsened significantly from 1–6 kHz, with more nuanced dose-related effects emerging when ear and frequency were considered jointly. Otoacoustic emission results revealed a significant dose group × ear × frequency interaction, including left-ear effects near 3.75 and 4.78 kHz that were related to individual noise dose, while threshold and OAE changes did not consistently co-occur. I will also present newer symptom-based analyses showing that participants who reported post-game tinnitus, fullness, or muffled hearing did not differ in overall dose from asymptomatic participants yet showed poorer extended high-frequency hearing before the game and greater post-exposure OAE decreases. These findings suggest that susceptibility to acute noise effects may not be explained by exposure dose alone, and that combining physiologic measures with symptom reports may improve the detection of early auditory injury after real-world noise exposure. The talk will invite discussion on possible explanations for the observed ear asymmetries.

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The working schedule is available here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_schedule

The titles and abstracts of the talks will be added here: https://engineering.purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_abstracts