Reference
Tinnitus Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the tinnitus and hearing terms you will run into on TinSim, in audiology appointments, and in research. This is educational reference material, not medical advice — always consult a qualified clinician about your own hearing.
- Tinnitus
- The perception of sound — ringing, buzzing, hissing, humming, roaring, clicking, or a pulsing whoosh — with no matching external source. It is a symptom, not a disease, and is extremely common.
- Subjective tinnitus
- Tinnitus only the affected person can hear. It is by far the most common type and is linked to changes in the hearing pathway and brain rather than a sound a clinician can detect.
- Objective tinnitus
- Rare tinnitus produced by a real internal sound (such as blood flow or muscle movement) that a clinician can sometimes hear with a stethoscope or instrument. It often has an identifiable, treatable cause.
- Pulsatile tinnitus
- Tinnitus that throbs or whooshes in time with your heartbeat. Because it can signal a vascular issue, new or one-sided pulsatile tinnitus should always be checked by a doctor.
- Somatic (somatosensory) tinnitus
- Tinnitus whose pitch or loudness changes when you move your jaw, neck, or head. It points to an interaction between the body's touch/movement system and the hearing system.
- Tonal tinnitus
- Tinnitus heard as a clear, steady tone at a recognizable pitch (often high, between roughly 4,000 and 8,000 Hz), as opposed to broadband noise like hissing or static.
- Hyperacusis
- Reduced tolerance to ordinary everyday sounds, which feel uncomfortably or even painfully loud. It frequently occurs alongside tinnitus.
- Misophonia
- A strong emotional reaction (irritation, anxiety, anger) to specific trigger sounds such as chewing or tapping. It is distinct from hyperacusis, which is about loudness rather than specific triggers.
- Masking
- Playing a comfortable background sound to cover or blend with tinnitus so it stands out less. Masking offers relief in the moment; it is not a cure.
- Sound therapy
- The broad use of external sound — noise, nature sounds, music, or specially shaped audio — to reduce the prominence or distress of tinnitus over time.
- Notched sound therapy
- Sound therapy in which the frequency band around a person's tinnitus pitch is removed (“notched”) from the audio, an approach studied as a way to reduce tinnitus-related brain activity. Evidence is still developing.
- Residual inhibition
- The temporary fading or disappearance of tinnitus right after listening to a masking sound. It is mostly used as a research and assessment phenomenon rather than a treatment.
- Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT)
- A structured program combining counseling with low-level sound to help the brain stop treating tinnitus as a threat, so it fades into the background — a process called habituation.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- A talk-therapy approach with strong evidence for reducing tinnitus-related distress. It changes the unhelpful thoughts and reactions around tinnitus rather than the sound itself.
- Habituation
- The natural process by which the brain learns to ignore a constant, non-threatening signal. The goal of most tinnitus management is habituation: the tinnitus may remain but stops grabbing attention.
- Pitch matching
- An assessment (and a TinSim feature) in which you adjust a tone until it matches the pitch of your tinnitus, giving an objective number to an otherwise private sound.
- Loudness matching
- Estimating how loud tinnitus is by comparing it to an external sound of known level. Tinnitus usually matches a surprisingly low loudness even when it feels intrusive.
- Minimum masking level (MML)
- The lowest level of a masking sound needed to just cover the tinnitus. It is one of the standard measurements taken during a tinnitus evaluation.
- Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI)
- A widely used questionnaire that scores how much tinnitus affects daily life, used to track severity and response to treatment over time. TinSim includes a self-report based on it.
- Sensorineural hearing loss
- Hearing loss from damage to the inner ear (cochlea) or hearing nerve. It is the most common type and is closely associated with tinnitus.
- Noise-induced hearing loss
- Permanent hearing damage caused by exposure to loud sound, whether a single blast or repeated exposure over years. It is a leading, preventable cause of tinnitus.
- Ototoxicity
- Damage to the ear from certain medications or chemicals, which can cause or worsen tinnitus and hearing loss. Ask a clinician before assuming a drug is the cause.
- Cochlea
- The spiral, fluid-filled structure of the inner ear that converts sound vibrations into nerve signals. Damage to its tiny hair cells is central to most tinnitus.
- Bimodal neuromodulation
- An emerging treatment that pairs sound with mild electrical stimulation (for example to the tongue) to retrain the brain's response to tinnitus. Devices in this category have been studied in clinical trials.
- White, pink, and brown noise
- Broadband “colors” of noise that differ in how energy is spread across frequencies: white is flat, pink emphasizes lower tones, and brown is deeper still. All are common tinnitus maskers.
- Hidden hearing loss
- Damage to the connections between the inner ear and the hearing nerve that a standard hearing test can miss. Research links it to tinnitus and to trouble hearing in noise despite a “normal” audiogram.
Want to hear these for yourself? Hear common tinnitus sounds or build your own in the simulator.