Assessment of Vestigial Auriculomotor Activity to Acoustic Stimuli Using Electrodes In and Around the Ear.
Andreas Schroeer, Martin Rune Andersen, Mike Lind Rank and 5 others
PMID 37830146WHAT IT FOUND
Dry-contact ear electrodes detected muscle responses indicating sound direction, but signals were weaker than those from electrodes placed directly on the postauricular muscle.
This confirms the technical feasibility of in-ear auditory attention decoding, though direct muscle recording remains superior.
Key findings
01In-ear electrodes successfully recorded transient EMG responses that indicated the direction of auditory stimuli, though these responses were significantly smaller than those recorded from electrodes placed directly on the postauricular muscle.
02Machine learning models could decode stimulus direction above chance levels using both in-ear and postauricular muscle electrodes, but classification accuracy was significantly higher when using electrodes placed directly on the muscle.
03The study ruled out eye and head movements as causes for the recorded signals, confirming that the responses originated from auricular muscle activity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was very small (10 participants), limiting the generalizability of the findings. The study focused on normal-hearing young adults, so results may not apply to patients with hearing loss or older adults. In-ear electrodes did not record from the postauricular muscle directly, leading to weaker signals and requiring individual optimization of electrode placement. The study was a proof-of-concept for signal recording, not a test of clinical efficacy or real-world device performance.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was funded by the European Union and the European Regional Development Fund.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that in-ear electrodes are currently superior or equal to traditional muscle electrodes for decoding auditory attention. The study showed that in-ear signals were significantly weaker and less accurate than those from electrodes placed directly on the postauricular muscle, meaning this technology is still in the feasibility stage rather than ready for clinical deployment.