Behavioral and Neural Measures of Auditory Distraction Are Not Associated with Tinnitus Severity

Background/Objectives: Individuals with chronic tinnitus perceive a phantom sound that imposes either a bothersome and irrepressible distraction throughout waking hours or a relatively mild nuisance that often fades into subliminal awareness. The difference in tinnitus salience may reflect a general difference in inhibitory control over any distracting sound, whether externally or internally generated. In this exploratory study, we tested whether tinnitus burden, assessed using the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), was associated with behavioral and neural responses to external auditory distraction. Methods: Thirty adults with chronic tinnitus completed behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) testing. Participants with lower and higher THI scores were similar in age and hearing thresholds. Data from twenty-three neurotypical adults provided an additional reference cohort. Participants classified sequences of amplitude-modulated tones as random or repeating during behavioral testing or combined behavioral and EEG recording sessions. Competing noise or melodic distractors imposed lower and higher levels of distraction, respectively. Results: Melodic distractors reduced response accuracy more than noise distractors, with comparable effects in the lower- and higher-THI groups. Neural synchronization to changes in the target sequence also decreased more with melodic distractors, but this effect did not differ between groups. Other measures of synchronization to target and distractor features showed no significant group differences. Conclusions: Behavioral and neural measures were sensitive to external auditory distraction but did not distinguish participants with lower and higher tinnitus burden. These findings do not support a general deficit in suppressing external auditory distractors as an explanation for greater tinnitus burden under the conditions tested.