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The Effect of Stimulus Bandwidth on the Nonlinear-Derived Tone-Burst-Evoked Otoacoustic Emission

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Abstract

Intermodulation distortion has been hypothesized as a mechanism contributing to the generation of short-latency (SL) components in the transient-evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE). Presumably, nonlinear interactions between the frequency components within the evoking stimulus induce cochlear distortion products, which mix in the cochlea and ear canal with reflected energy from each stimulus-frequency’s tonotopic place. The mixing of these different components is evidenced in the bandpass-filtered emission waveform as a series of different latency peaks. The current study tested the hypothesis that intermodulation distortion, induced within the spectral bandwidth of the evoking stimulus, is the primary mechanism through which the SL components are generated. The nonlinear-derived tone-burst-evoked OAE (TBOAEnl) was evoked using 2-kHz tone bursts with durations of 3, 6, 12, and 24 cycles. As tone burst duration doubled, the spectral bandwidth was halved. It was hypothesized that contributions to the TBOAEnl from SL components would decrease as tone burst duration increased and spectral bandwidth decreased, if the SL components were generated through intermodulation distortion. Despite differences in spectral bandwidth between the evoking stimuli, the latencies and magnitudes of the different latency components between the 3- and 6-cycle TBOAEnl were comparable. The 12- and 24-cycle TBOAEnl envelopes were characteristic of destructive phase interactions between different latency components overlapping in time. The different latency components in the 3- and 6-cycle TBOAEnl introduced a characteristic level dependency to TBOAEnl magnitude and latency when analyzed across a broad time window spanning the different components. A similar dependency described the 12- and 24-cycle TBOAEnl input/output and latency-intensity functions, suggesting that the SL components evident in the shorter-duration TBOAEnl equally contributed to the longer-duration TBOAEnl, despite reductions in spectral bandwidth. The similarity between the different TBOAEnl suggests that they share a common generation mechanism and casts doubt on intermodulation distortion as the generation mechanism of SL TEOAE components in humans.

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Acknowledgments

Subject compensation was provided by a grant from the Executive Council for Graduate and Professional Students at the University of Iowa. The authors thank Rachel Stanziola and Brittany James who performed the data collection for this study. Portions of this work were presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Auditory Society and the 2014 Mid-winter Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. This research served as part of the first author’s dissertation work.

Conflict of Interest

Neither of the authors have a commercial interest or other conflict of interest concerning the research detailed in the submitted manuscript. Funds for data collection (subject compensation) were provided by a grant from the Executive Council for Graduate and Professional Students at the University of Iowa.

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  1. Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 North 30th Street, Omaha, NE, 68131, USA

    James D. Lewis

  2. Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, 250 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA

    Shawn S. Goodman

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Correspondence to James D. Lewis.

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Lewis, J.D., Goodman, S.S. The Effect of Stimulus Bandwidth on the Nonlinear-Derived Tone-Burst-Evoked Otoacoustic Emission. JARO 15, 915–931 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-014-0484-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-014-0484-6

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