Abstract: Efficiency of the auditory evoked-potential (AEP) method of audiometry in odontocetes can be markedly increased by the use of (1) stimulus parameters providing maximal AEP amplitude and (2) methods of better extraction of AEP from background noise. A train of short tone pips is a very effective stimulus that allows using the same analysis technique as the sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) stimulus, but provides much higher AEP amplitude. For AEP extraction from background noise, apart from a commonly used averaging method (mean-based extraction), median-based extraction is very effective when the noise is not stationary and includes short, but big spikes or bursts.

Key Words: odontocetes, hearing, audiometry, evoked potentials

Document Type: research article

DOI: 10.1578/AM.33.1.2007.14

Page Numbers: 14 – 23