Inaccuracies in the measurement of auditory brainstem response data in normal hearing and cochlear hearing loss

In a test-retest experiment inaccuracies in the measurement of the peak latencies and threshold of the auditory brainstem response were determined for a group with normal hearing and for a group with cochlear hearing loss. The inaccuracy of the auditory brainstem response threshold is less than 4 dB in both groups. The inaccuracy in latency was measured as a function of stimulation level. In both groups the latency inaccuracy of peak V varies from 0.1 ms at levels well above threshold to 0.2 ms near the response threshold. Analysis of variance showed that in subjects with normal hearing the intra- and interindividual variabilities of the peak V latencies contribute about equally to the total variance at all stimulation levels. The implications that these findings have for the determination of the horizontal shift of the latency-intensity curve are discussed.