The Early Evoked Cortical Response To Third-Octave Clicks And Tones

Abstract

The Na-Pa amplitudes of the early evoked cortical response to tones and clicks were compared; tones of 500 and 2 000 Hr and third-octave clicks of the same center frequencies were given to six normally hearing listeners at sensation levels of 20 and 50 dB. The clicks produced larger, better defined reposes in essentially all cases. It is shown that the energy in the click produced by a standard third-octave filter does not spread excessively beyond the nominal pass band, and thus narrow-band clicks should given tonotopic information similar to the of pure tones.

Third-octave bandwidths are also comparable to critical bandwidths in the low to midaudiometric range.