Thresholds for Short-Latency Auditory-Evoked Potentials to Tones in Notched Noise in Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Subjects

Abstract

The thresholds for the short-latency auditory evoked potentials (SLAEPs) to short-duration tones presented in notched-noise masking were evaluated in 20 normal-hearing and 20 hearing-impaired subjects. The differences (dB) between these thresholds (dB nHL) and the pure-tone behavioral thresholds (dB HL) across all 40 subjects were 11.6, 6.1, 6.3 and 0.8 dB for 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000 Hz, respectively. These differences were significantly smaller for the hearing-impaired subjects than for the normal-hearing subjects. Ninety-eight percent of the SLAEP threshold estimations were within 30 dB of the subjects' pure-tone behavioral thresholds and 91% were within 20 dB.