Attention and evoked otoacoustic emissions: attempts at characterization of intersubject variation

The present study has two aims: to define the visual attention effect on evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAEs) found in several previous studies: a first experiment sought to determine the conditions necessary to produce such an effect, and found that, neither the complexity nor the duration of the task modified results obtained under attention conditions. The second experiment sought to characterize the great intersubject variation found in most visual attention studies; two possible explanations are discussed: medial efferent system activity, assessed through the recording of otoacoustic emissions, or subject "attention profile" as drawn from a questionnaire.