2-DIMENSIONAL FILTER TO FACILITATE DETECTION OF TRANSIENT-EVOKED OTOACOUSTIC EMISSIONS

This paper implements a filtering technique to enhance the signal-to-n oise ratio (SNR) and, in turn, the detection of transient-evoked otoac oustic emissions (TEOAE's), generated by healthy human cochlea. One ca n increase the SNR by compiling an image of recorded TEOAE from more t han one stimulus intensity, averaged over a few sweeps, which can be f urther processed by means of two-dimensional spatial mean filters. Ave raging some 60 sweeps recorded to stimuli at several intensity levels requires one-forth of the collection time needed for a classical set o f responses (average of 260 sweeps), and obtains approximately the sam e final SNR. The relation between the performances of the proposed tec hnique and the SNR of the rapidly acquired responses before filtering is also investigated.