Distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) level from normal hearing individuals can vary by as much as 30 dB with small frequency changes (a phenomenon known as DPOAE fine structure). This fine structure is hypothesized to stem from the interaction of components from two different regions of the cochlea (the nonlinear generator region and the reflection component from the DP region). An efficient procedure to separate these two components would improve the clinical and research utility of DPOAE by permitting separate evaluation of different cochlea regions. In this paper, two procedures for evaluating DPOAE fine structure are compared: DPOAE generated by fixed-frequency primaries versus continuously sweeping primaries. The sweep DPOAE data are analyzed with a least squares fit filter. Sweep rates of greater than 8 s per octave permit rapid evaluation of the cochlear fine structure. A higher sweep rate of 2 s per octave provided DPOAE without fine structure. Under these conditions, the longer latency reflection component falls outside the range of the filter. Consequently, DPOAE obtained with sweeping tones can be used either to get more rapid estimates of DPOAE fine structure or to obtain estimates of DPOAE from the generator region uncontaminated by energy from the reflection region.

Abstract:A previous study by [J. Lee, G. Long, and C. Jeung, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, S3332 (2006)] found that information at the onset or offset of modulation could be utilized for improved amplitude modulation (AM) depth discrimination in a continuous carrier condition (carrier presented 250 ms earlier and later than the modulator). In this study, the relative contribution of information at the onset or offset of the modulation was examined with an onset-fringe carrier condition (carrier begins 250 ms earlier than the modulator) and an offset-fringe condition (carrier ends 250 ms later than the modulator). The results suggest that modulation information at the onset might be utilized more than at the offset.

Modulation detection interference (MDI) was measured for listeners with normal hearing (NH) and cochlear hearing loss (HI). The signal was 1 kHz, and the interferer was 2 kHz. The stimuli level was 50 or 22 dB SL. The interferer was modulated with 8 Hz at various modulation depths (25, 50, 75, or 100%). The onset of signal was delayed by 0, 125, 250, 375, 500 or 625 ms relative to onset of the interferer. For NH subjects, MDI increased systematically with increasing modulation depth of the interferer. MDI almost disappeared with 375 or 500 ms onset delay except a condition with the interferer of 25% modulation depth where there was no MDI at all across different onset delay conditions. In contrast, for HI subjects, there was quite an amount of MDI even with the interferer of 25% modulation depth, and MDI was greater than NH for all modulation depths at 0 and 125 ms onset delays, suggesting that the perceived modulation depth of the interferer might be exaggerated for HI than for NH.

Previous studies (Lee and Green, 1994; Lee and Bacon, 1997) suggested that both AM rate and AM depth discrimination were influenced by the number of AM cycles, instead of the duration of stimuli. AM detection and AM depth discrimination (standard depth=0.1) were measured as a function of the number of AM cycles for modulation rates of 10, 20, 40, 80, 125, 160, and 320 Hz. Different numbers of modulation cycles were used for each modulation rate: 2, 4, or 8 for 10 Hz; 2, 4, 8, or 16 for 20 Hz; 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 for 40 Hz; 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 for 80, 125, 160, and 320 Hz. The carrier was a broadband-noise (10 kHz lowpass), and the carrier was either gated with the modulator or presented 250 ms earlier and 250 ms later than the modulator. The overall level of each presentation was randomized within 6-dB range from 65 dB SPL. The results suggest that there might be different temporal integration processes for AM detection and AM depth discrimination. The pattern is different for lower and higher modulation rates. [Work was supported by NIDCD Grant No. R03 DC06605-01.]

Although otoacoustic emissions (OAE) are used as clinical and research tools, the correlation between OAE behavioral estimates of hearing status is not large. In normal-hearing individuals, the level of OAEs can vary as much as 30 dB when the frequency is changed less than 5%. These pseudoperiodic variations of OAE level with frequency are known as fine structure. Hearing thresholds measured with high-frequency resolution reveals a similar (up to 15 dB) fine structure. We examine the impact of OAE and threshold fine structures on the prediction of auditory thresholds from OAE levels. Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were measured with sweeping primary tones. Psychoacoustic detection thresholds were measured using pure tones, sweep tones, FM tones, and narrow-band noise. Sweep DPOAE and narrow-band threshold estimates provide estimates that are less influenced by cochlear fine structure and should lead to a higher correlation between OAE levels and psychoacoustic thresholds. [Research supported by PSC CUNY, NIDCD, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research in U.S. Department of Education, and The Ministry of Education in Korea.]