Recruitment

A type of sensory-neural hearing loss where the range of normal or comfortable hearing, between the inaudible and the too loud, is reduced.

In some instances the growth in loudness of a sound is so great as to cause distortion, masking, unintelligibility and, with very loud sounds or impact sounds, a threshold shift that may take several days to return to normal.

See: Hearing Loss. Compare: Acoustic Trauma, Dynamic Range, Hyperacusis, Presbycusis, Tinnitus.