Question

The hearing threshold is an invariable fixed intensity above which sound is always heard and below which sound is never heard.

(a) True

(b) False

This question was posed to me during an online interview.

This is a very interesting question from Mechanism of Hearing topic in portion Audiometry of Biomedical Instrumentation

Answer 1

The correct answer is (a) True

For explanation I would say: It is False. The hearing threshold is not an invariable fixed intensity above which sound is always heard and below which sound is never heard. In fact, the sensitivity of the auditory mechanism is found to vary with interactions between certain physiological, psychological and physical factors. Therefore, the threshold may be regarded as an intensity range within which sound stimuli at or near the statistically determined threshold may or may not be perceived.