The reliability of averaging technique in registration of slow auditory evoked potentials in man.

The authors studied the application of arithmetic averaging in the registration of auditory evoked potentials (AEP). Fourier analyses of averaged potentials show a typical shape of both amplitude and phase spectra in the region of the AEP. The maximum of the amplitude spectra diminishes with lower sound intensities and shifts to lower frequencies. The enhancement of the mean power of the EEG in the region of the AEP demonstrates the suitability of the arithmetic averaging technique in the Electric Response Audiometry. For clinical practice the simultaneous registration of the arithmetic mean and the mean square value along with the standard deviation is useful to detect artifacts or amplitude and latency shifts of the AEP components.