Measures of cochlear travelling wave delay in humans: I. Comparison of three techniques in subjects with normal hearing.

This study was designed to estimate and compare measures of cochlear travelling wave delay and travelling wave velocity in normally-hearing adults. Travelling wave delay and velocity measures were estimated in 23 normally-hearing adults using three different test techniques: i) derived auditory brainstem responses (ABR); ii) derived frequency-following responses (FFR); and iii) tone-burst-evoked otoacoustic emissions (TBEOAE). Estimates from ABR and TBEOAE were comparable to each other in terms of both averaged group values and associated standard deviations. Furthermore, mean cochlear travelling wave velocity estimated from ABR and TBEOAE were comparable to published estimates. Average cochlear delays obtained using the derived FFR were significantly shorter than those obtained from the other two techniques, possibly due to the effect of cochlear microphonic contamination. Among the dependent variables investigated, measures of delay are to be preferred over velocity since the latter are based on uncertain values of cochlear distance.