Represent Frequency Following Response of Speech-ABR by Instantaneous Energy Spectrum

Abstract

A frequency following responses (FFR) of speech evoked auditory brainstem response (speech-ABR) elicited by the speech syllable /da/ contains three distinct waves named as D, E and F, corresponding to the structure of the stimulus sound. The detection and characterization of FFRs are critical in the study and application of speech-ABRs. Conventional methods detect the latencies of the waves in time domain by measuring the maximal amplitudes of the waveform in the preset windows, which suffers the problem of low quality of FFR waves. In this paper, we define an instantaneous energy (IE) spectrum based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method (EMD-IE method) to detect FFR and measure the latencies of the waves. The results reveal that the FFRs are mostly evident on the second layer of the IE spectra, which would benefit the detection and measurement of the FFRs in clinic.KeywordsSpeech evoked auditory brainstem responses (speech-ABR)frequency following response (FFR)empirical mode decomposition (EMD)instantaneous energy (IE)