Weber’s tuning fork test, a method of screening auditory acuity. It is especially useful in determining whether a hearing loss in one ear is a conductive or a sensorineural loss. The test is performed by placing the stem of a vibrating tuning fork in the center of the person’s forehead, or the midline vertex. The loudness of the sound is equal in both ears if hearing is normal or if there is a symmetric hearing loss. If the person has a sensorineural loss in one ear, the unaffected ear perceives the sound as louder. When conductive hearing loss is present in one ear, the sound is perceived as louder in that ear because it does not hear ordinary background noise conducted through the air and receives only vibrations by bone conduction.
