Effect of contralateral and ipsilateral masking of acoustic stimulation on the latencies of auditory evoked potentials from cochlea and brain stem.

Masking techniques were applied to a group of 10 subjects with normal hearing, to investigate the influence of masking on the latencies of brain stem auditory evoked potentials. The levels of sufficient masking and overmasking were determined. Central masking, as established in a psychophysiological manner, cannot be clearly demonstrated by auditory brain stem evoked potentials. When masking the untested ear, the alterations in the response are small and this can be ignored in clinical practice if masking of the untested ear is necessary.