Changes in otoacoustic emissions during selective auditory and visual attention

Previous studies have demonstrated that the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) measured during behavioral tasks can have different magnitudes when subjects are attending selectively or not attending. The implication is that the cognitive and perceptual demands of a task can affect the first neural stage o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2015-05, Vol.137 (5), p.2737-2757
Main Authors: Walsh, Kyle P, Pasanen, Edward G, McFadden, Dennis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Acoustics
Adult
Attention
Auditory Perception
Cochlea - innervation
Cognition
Dichotic Listening Tests
Efferent Pathways - physiology
Feedback, Psychological
Female
Humans
Male
Nonlinear Dynamics
Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous
Perceptual Masking
Photic Stimulation
Psychological and Physiological Acoustics
Reflex
Sound Spectrography
Speech Perception
Time Factors
Visual Perception
Young Adult
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Summary:Previous studies have demonstrated that the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) measured during behavioral tasks can have different magnitudes when subjects are attending selectively or not attending. The implication is that the cognitive and perceptual demands of a task can affect the first neural stage of auditory processing-the sensory receptors themselves. However, the directions of the reported attentional effects have been inconsistent, the magnitudes of the observed differences typically have been small, and comparisons across studies have been made difficult by significant procedural differences. In this study, a nonlinear version of the stimulus-frequency OAE (SFOAE), called the nSFOAE, was used to measure cochlear responses from human subjects while they simultaneously performed behavioral tasks requiring selective auditory attention (dichotic or diotic listening), selective visual attention, or relative inattention. Within subjects, the differences in nSFOAE magnitude between inattention and attention conditions were about 2-3 dB for both auditory and visual modalities, and the effect sizes for the differences typically were large for both nSFOAE magnitude and phase. These results reveal that the cochlear efferent reflex is differentially active during selective attention and inattention, for both auditory and visual tasks, although they do not reveal how attention is improved when efferent activity is greater.
ISSN:0001-4966
1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.4919350