Auditory Change Complex Responses to Spectrotemporally Modulated Stimuli.
Lisbeth Birkelund Simonsen, Jaime A Undurraga, Abigail Anne Kressner and 2 others
PMID 40437666WHAT IT FOUND
An objective hearing test using brain responses detected modulation better with tonal than noise stimuli.
Averaging left and right mastoid signals and tracking the 'reference-to-target' change yielded the most reliable results. This method works without patient responses, aiding those who cannot cooperate with standard behavioral tests.
Key findings
01Tonal-carrier stimuli evoked auditory change complex responses in 33% of trials compared to 10% for noise-carrier stimuli, showing tonal stimuli are more effective for this objective measure.
02Averaging responses from both left and right mastoids produced significantly higher detection rates than using either mastoid alone, with the right mastoid outperforming the left.
03The 'On' direction (change from reference to target) provided the highest detection rates, and selecting the individually strongest direction at the easiest level (16 dB nCL) minimized cases where no response was detected.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study validates the technical parameters of the test but does not report clinical diagnostic accuracy or correlation with speech-in-noise performance. Test-retest reliability was not analyzed in this paper, though a significant difference was found between test and retest sessions. The sample excluded patients with Ménière’s disease and required hearing thresholds not to exceed 80 dB HL, limiting generalizability to those with profound hearing loss. Handedness and musical training were not controlled for, which can influence hemispheric processing of sound.
Declared interests
The work was supported by the Innovation Fund Denmark and the William Demant Foundation. Authors L.B.S. and S.L. are co-inventors of a patent related to the test and own stocks in Demant A/S, which owns Interacoustics A/S and Oticon A/S, companies that sell the ACT test instrumentation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high detection rates as proof that this test accurately diagnoses speech-in-noise difficulties. This study only establishes which technical settings (tonal carriers, averaged mastoids) best elicit a brain response; it does not yet report how well those responses correlate with actual hearing ability or speech understanding.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →