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

Med Biol Eng Comput. 2001 Jan;39(1):134-9. doi: 10.1007/BF02345277.

Abstract

A new method is presented for the purpose of improving pass/fail separation during transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) hearing screening. The method combines signal decomposition in scales using the discrete wavelet transform, non-linear denoising and scale-dependent time windowing. The cross-correlation 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 operating characteristics for a database of 5,214 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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Hearing Loss / diagnosis*
  • Hearing Tests / instrumentation
  • Hearing Tests / methods*
  • Humans
  • Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous*
  • ROC Curve
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted*