Elsevier

Hearing Research

Volume 98, Issues 1–2, 1 September 1996, Pages 54-67
Hearing Research

Research paper
Evoked otoacoustic emissions and auditory selective attention

https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-5955(96)00059-7Get rights and content

Abstract

The auditory system has an extensive peripheral efferent innervation. The question addressed in this paper is whether the olivocochlear bundle (OCB) efferent system innervating the outer hair cells WHO of the cochlea plays a role in selective attention. As evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE) provide a measure of the active micromechanical properties of OHCs, they can be used to assess the role of the efferent system in attention. Six experiments using tone-pip EOAEs are reported. In each experiment, EOAEs generated by 1 or 2 kHz tone pips when they were attended were compared with EOAEs to the same stimuli when they were unattended. In three experiments (1–4), a non-linear stimulus difference method was used to record a pure cochlear component of EOAEs. In Exps. 1–5, I and 2 kHz tone pips were delivered to the same ear and the difficulty of the subjects' task was manipulated in order to produce a more focussed attentional state or contralateral noise was presented to determine whether attention effects are dependent upon having an already activated efferent system. In Exp. 6, the 1 and 2 kHz stimuli were delivered to opposite ears. A total of 70 subjects participated in the six experiments. There were no effects of attention on EOAEs in any of the experiments in the direction of previously reported effects. The results of these first six experiments employing simple attention switches between fixed auditory objects do not support active cochlear involvement in selective attention.

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      These findings suggest that top–down auditory attentional modulation can have a differential interaural effect on cochlear functioning, increasing efferent suppression in one ear when attention is focusing on the other ear (de Boer and Thornton, 2007; de Boer et al., 2012). However, it is important to note that the effects observed in those studies were often quite small (and borderline statistically significant), with large interindividual differences in the magnitude of the effects, and that other studies have obtained different results (Harkrider and Bowers, 2009) or failed to show any significant attentional influence on OAEs (Michie et al., 1996).11 Regarding crossmodal attentional modulation of cochlear functioning, the most commonly observed effect was a decrease in EOAE amplitudes during visual detection task compared with no-task condition, suggesting an enhancement of efferent suppression under visual attention (Froehlich et al., 1993).

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      In the present study, however, we first aim to replicate the finding of suppression of DPOAEs in response to the attended modality. The observed suppression of DPOAE amplitude to attended auditory stimuli is consistent with the findings from several studies by Michie et al. (1996). In their studies, Michie and colleagues sought to replicate findings from several groups using different attention and stimulus paradigms – all of which reported a relative decrease in the amplitude of ignored responses (Puel et al., 1988; Méric and Collet, 1992, 1994; Giard et al., 1994; Maison et al., 2001); this was the expected peripheral consequence of ignoring a stimulus as this effect is the generally accepted effect observed cortically (Woldorff et al., 1987; Johnson and Zatorre, 2005; Kauramäki et al., 2007).

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      Giard and colleagues found increased amplitude of evoked OAEs to the attended ear, using a two tone dichotic listening paradigm (Giard, Collet, Bouchet, & Pernier, 1994). However, the attention effect on OAEs is controversial as Michie and colleagues did not find increased strength of the emissions associated with attended stimuli, but a tend towards increased OAE to unattended stimuli (Michie, LePage, Solowij, Haller, & Terry, 1996). More recently, Maison and colleagues report better detection of probe tones in background noise, as they interpret as evidence for an influence of attention on the auditory peripheral hearing via the cortico-fugal pathways (Maison, Micheyl, & Collet, 1999, 2001).

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