Listening to notched noise can unmask spontaneous otoacoustic emissions

Evidence

Two of the subjects reliably matched higher frequencies (factor of 1.3-1.4 above the LEF) in two or three LEF conditions, leading to functions where the matched frequency sometimes did not increase with increase in LEF. For the present purposes, these cases were excluded from further analysis of stage II data, as they could be due to spontaneous OAEs that became audible after listening to the notched noise (Krump 1993 ; Wiegrebe et al. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5400

Categorization

• QUESTION: How does notched noise exposure unmask spontaneous OAEs — does it alter the cochlear amplifier’s gain temporarily?
• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions as a confound in psychoacoustic pitch-matching experiments.