Otoacoustic emissions and improved pass/fail separation using wavelet analysis and time windowing

A new method is presented for the purpose of improving pass/fail separation during transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) hearing screening. Th e method combines signal decomposition in scales using the discrete wavelet transform, non-linear denoising and scale-dependent time windowing. The cr osscorrelation coefficient between two subaveraged, processed TEOAE signals is used as a pass/fail criterion and assessed in relation to the pure-tone , mean hearing level. The performance is presented in terms of receiver ope rating characteristics for a database of 5214 individuals. The results show that the specificity improves from 68% to 83% at a sensitivity of 90% when compared with the conventional wave reproducibility parameter.