Preferred Name
Elizabeth Pahygiannis
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9987-7889
Date of Graduation
5-9-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Audiology (AuD)
Department
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Second Advisor
Lincoln Gray
Third Advisor
Ayasakanta Rout
Abstract
Dizziness and imbalance are one of the most common complaints of people 65 years and older, as it affects 20-30% of this population and puts one at a higher risk of falling (Iwasaki & Yamasoba, 2015). Vestibular impairments are identified through measures of vestibular reflexes such as the VOR. However, the extent of impairment observed through the VOR may not correlate with the patient’s perceptions of their symptoms (Kobel et al., 2021).A large portion of patients with vestibular symptoms cannot be diagnosed with the testing that is currently available (Agrawal et al., 2009). Magnitude estimation is a psychophysics technique used to measure the perception of a sensory stimulus. Participants estimate the magnitude of the physical stimulus by assigning a numerical value proportional to the stimulus magnitude they perceive. Vestibular magnitude estimates (e.g. speed, magnitude of rotational amplitude) are not well studied. The objective of this study was to extend previous vestibular psychophysics work by determining the test-retest reliability of magnitude estimates to angular rotation in the yaw axis at varying peak velocities and stimulus frequencies.
