The choice of distracting task can affect the quality of auditory evoked potentials recorded for clinical assessment.

Auditory evoked potential (AEP) recordings often require subjects to ignore the stimuli and stay awake. In the present experiment, early (ABR), middle (MLR), and late latency (LLR) AEPs were recorded to compare the effect of five different distracting tasks: (1) doing nothing eyes open, (2) reading, (3) watching a movie, (4) solving a three-digit sum, and (5) doing nothing eyes closed (or counting the stimuli for LLR). Results showed that neither the amplitudes nor the latencies of the ABR, MLR, or LLR were affected by task.

Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions recorded using maximum length sequences from patients with sensorineural hearing loss.

Much research has shown that transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) can successfully separate normally hearing and hearing impaired populations. However, this finding comes from TEOAEs recorded using conventional averaging at low stimulation rates. Presenting clicks according to maximum length sequences (MLSs) enables TEOAEs to be recorded at very high stimulation rates.

Temporal nonlinearity revealed by transient evoked otoacoustic emissions recorded to trains of multiple clicks.

A series of detailed experiments is described that investigates how a transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) recorded to one-click stimulus is affected by the presence of a variable number of preceding clicks presented over a range of interclick intervals (ICIs). Part of the rationale was to determine if the resulting nonlinear temporal interactions could help explain the amplitude reduction seen when TEOAEs are recorded at very high click rates, as when using maximum length sequence stimulation. Amongst the findings was that the presence of a preceding train of clicks could either suppress or enhance emission amplitude, depending on the number of clicks in the train and the ICI.