Frequency specificity and on-effect in brainstem electric response audiometry.
Auditory brainstem responses recorded with tone bursts (1, 2, 3, 4 kHz; 70, 50, 30 dB SL) are compared with the recordings obtained with merely the first period of these bursts. No significant differences are found. The initial cycle of a tone burst is apparently the effective stimulus for the brainstem potential. This illustrates how the brainstem electric response is an on-effect. Measurements of the frequency spectra of the first period stimuli indicate better the real frequency specificity of the tone burst method. As duration is irrelevant for evoking the auditory brainstem response, single sine stimuli seem to offer the maximum frequency specificity that can be obtained with tonal stimuli.
D001299:Audiometry; D001300:Audiometry, Evoked Response; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D013997:Time Factors