Otoacoustic emissions are faint sounds generated by the cochlea that predict auditory function
Evidence
Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are faint sounds that travel from the cochlea back through the middle ear and are measured in the external auditory canal. Since their discovery in the late 1970s by David Kemp ( 1978 ), they have been used in the clinic to evaluate the health of outer hair cells (OHC) and in research to gain scientific insight into cochlear mechanics. Behaviorally they have been shown to predict the pattern of pure-tone quiet thresholds (Long and Tubis 1988 ; Lee and Long 2012 ; Dewey and Dhar 2014 ), auditory frequency selectivity, (Baiduc et al. 2014 ), and loudness perception (Mauermann et al. 2004 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5757
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- DEFINE: Defines otoacoustic emissions — faint sounds travelling from the cochlea back out through the middle ear, first discovered by Kemp in the late 1970s.
Related
- Cochlear otoacoustic emissions measurably shift behavioral thresholds, selectivity, and loudness (similarity 0.92)
- The cochlea actively amplifies sound and emits echoes that reveal inner-ear health (similarity 0.88)
- Otoacoustic emissions non-invasively probe outer hair cell function in humans. (similarity 0.88)
- OAEs reveal cochlear function through sounds emitted back into the ear canal (similarity 0.87)
- Missing otoacoustic emissions reveal conductive or cochlear but not retrocochlear defects (similarity 0.86)
- Mild hearing loss eliminates otoacoustic emissions but not psychoacoustic efferent measures (similarity 0.84)
- Otoacoustic emissions objectively reveal auditory system functioning and defect location (similarity 0.83)
- Otoacoustic emissions originate peripherally before neural encoding begins (similarity 0.83)
- Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions enable least-invasive monitoring of inner ear function (similarity 0.83)
- Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions cluster near SFOAE fine-structure maxima but remain undetectable there. (similarity 0.82)
- A healthy cochlea emits new frequencies when stimulated by two tones (similarity 0.81)
- Otoacoustic emission levels predict which tones listeners weight more heavily (similarity 0.81)
- Loud noise damage can make the cochlea spontaneously generate its own noise (similarity 0.80)
- Otoacoustic emission spectra show discrete energy maxima stable across sensation levels (similarity 0.80)
- Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions align with peaks in stimulus-frequency fine structure (similarity 0.79)