Auditory attention and memory in normal hearing individuals with and without tinnitus

Background and aim: research shows that 13-18 percent of the people suffer from tinnitus, almost 5 percent of which, have chronic or bothersome tinnitus. chronic tinnitus may be accompanied by anxiety, depression, insomnia, and impairment in cognitive functions such as memory and attention. the purpose of this study was to compare the verbal auditory memory and divided attention between individuals with normal hearing in two groups of with and without tinnitus aged from 18 to 55 years old.methods: this study were performed on 16 tinnitus patients (6 men and 10 women) aged from 23 to 53 years old and 20 healthy volunteers (3 men and 17 women) aged from 21 to 49 years old with normal hearing thresholds. puretone audiometry (pta), tinnitus evaluation, dichotic auditory verbal memory test (davmt), randomized dichotic digits test (rddt), and tinnitus handicap inventory (thi) were employed for all participants.results: comparing the outputs of the rddt and davmt tests between control and patients groups revealed no significant difference (p=0.65, p=0.21).conclusion: based on the results of behavioral tests, divided auditory attention, and verbal auditory memory, which demonstrated no remarkable difference between control and patients groups, it is suggested that mild chronic tinnitus in individuals with normal hearing does not interfere in the divided auditory attention, verbal auditory memory.