Auditory-evoked potential to pattern-reversal stimulation.

The late auditory-evoked potential (AEP) was studied in response to a frequency-modulated complex synthesized from discrete tones, somewhat analogous to visual stimulation using reversals of alternating light and dark stripes. The "pattern-reversal' AEP was found to be a heartier response than the familiar transient-evoked AEP (e.g. tone-burst-elicited potential), but the latencies of the component potentials were longer. The apparent enhancement of the AEP is postulated to be due to response summation across critical bands, akin perhaps to loudness growth as stimulus bandwidth increases.