Based on the former studies, there is evidence of tinnitus being associated with performance on cognitive ability tests (for example Andersson et al. 2009, Hallam et al. 2004). The topic of my bachelor thesis was to unravel how depression, stress and anxiety connected with tinnitus symptoms are related to cognitive abilities such as verbal fluency, inhibition ability and working memory capacity. In order to fill an existing gap of knowledge, the relationship of different severity of stress caused by tinnitus symptoms as measured with Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and cognitive abilities and depression and anxiety symptoms was emphasized.

The experiment group was divided into two subgroups, those with lower and higher level of perceived tinnitus severity and the differences in test scores between groups were investigated with one-way analysis of variance. As a result, significant differences between the two tinnitus patient groups were found in the level of performance in inhibition task where participants were asked to give the font color of congruent color - word pair as an answer. It was also studied whether there were correlations between perceived severity of tinnitus symptoms, depression and anxiety symptoms, working memory capacity and inhibition ability. As a result of correlation analysis, this study confirmed the connection between tinnitus symptoms and anxiety and depression symptoms found in previous studies, and a significant correlation was found between THI scores and anxiety symptoms, and THI scores and C inhibition test scores where the participant was asked to name the font color from incongruent color-word pairs. The results of this study suggest that there is a connection between the level of perceived tinnitus severity and the ability to name font color of incongruent color - word pair. The current study found no evidence about the connection between THI scores and other cognitive abilities as well as anxiety and depression symptoms, even though the THI scores correlated with both anxiety symptom scores and with the reaction times of an inhibition task where the participants were asked to point out the font color from incongruent color - word pairs.