Avoiding electromagnetic artifacts when recording auditory steady-state responses.

Electromagnetic artifacts can occur when recording multiple auditory steady-state responses evoked by sinusoidally amplitude modulated (SAM) stimuli. High-intensity air-conducted stimuli evoked responses even when hearing was prevented by masking. Additionally, high-intensity bone-conducted stimuli evoked responses that were completely different from those evoked by air-conducted stimuli of similar sensory level. These artifacts were caused by aliasing since they did not occur when recordings used high analog-digital (AD) conversion rates or when high frequencies in the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal were attenuated by steep-slope low-pass filtering. Two possible techniques can displace aliased energy away from the response frequencies: (1) using an AD rate that is not an integer submultiple of the carrier frequencies and (2) using stimuli with frequency spectra that do not alias back to the response frequencies, such as beats or "alternating SAM" tones. Alternating SAM tones evoke responses similar to conventional SAM tones, whereas beats produce significantly smaller responses.