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To the Editor.—I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the interesting study of "Abnormal Auditory Adaptation" by Parker and Decker. The one minute modification of the Carhart tone-decay technique was originally proposed as a time saving device. Subsequent investigation, however, suggested to us that very little significant information was lost by shortening the test time. True, there are rate instances of delayed tone decay which the one minute test would miss. I believe that the patient shown in Fig 8 shows a most unusual pattern of abnormal adaptation. The substantial majority of patients with proven retrocochlear pathology examined in our center have demonstrated over 30 dB of tone decay within one minute. Unquestionably, the Carhart technique yields considerably more information but at a substantial sacrifice in time and patient fatigue.
I have one other brief comment. Neither the Carhart test nor the one minute modification of it were designed