Repeatability of non-invasive physiogical measures from the early auditory pathway

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2017-05, Vol.141 (5), p.3899-3899
• Main Authors: Bharadwaj, Hari M., Varghese, Lenny A., Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4988769

Objective physiological measures such as otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) and evoked potentials (e.g., auditory brainstem responses, envelope-following responses) provide a non-invasive window into the function of specific early portions of the auditory pathway. However, both the clinical utility of such measures and our ability to reproducibly relate such measures to individual behavior are limited by many sources of variability. Indeed, variability may be introduced by confounding physiological and anatomical factors (e.g., individual differences in cochlear dispersion, head and brain tissue geometry, efferent effects), by the non-standardized nature of calibration techniques for acoustic stimulation and in-ear measurements (e.g., taking into account individual ear-canal properties), and by measurement-related factors (e.g., contact impedance, and noise from unrelated brain activity). Over the last five years, we have conducted several experiments to explore individual differences in suprathreshold hearing, which has forced us to address some of these sources of variability. In this presentation, summarizing the results from several unpublished “mini” experiments, we describe some methodological choices that we have employed, or plan to employ, to improve the test-retest reliability of physiological measures.