Arturo Moleti: Probing human hearing with otoacoustic emissions
When: May 8, 2013 @ 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Where: Room G.03, Informatics Forum, Crichton Street, University of Edinburgh
Seminar Title
Probing human hearing with otoacoustic emissions
Seminar Speaker(s)
Dr Arturo Moleti (University Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy)
Seminar Abstract
Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are sounds that arise as a byproduct of the active nonlinear cochlear amplifier, which forms the sound transduction part of the inner ear. The cochlea amplifier accounts for the outstanding properties of human auditory function, namely a remarkably low hearing threshold and high frequency resolution. Cochlear mechanics provides a reliable theoretical framework describing both the transmission and active amplification of the acoustic signals along the auditory pathway, and the generation of backward-going cochlear travelling waves, eventually measured as sound in the ear canal, and referred to as OAEs. Nonlinear active cochlear models require numerical solutions in the time domain, which may be computationally demanding. Advanced signal analysis techniques allow one to disentangle the different OAE components associated with different generation mechanisms/places, using time-frequency filtering algorithms, which may lead to increased power of the OAE-based diagnostic tests.