Overlap of competing voices may mask attentional effects on speech-like distortion product otoacoustic emissions

Attending to one of two competing talkers does not modulate speech-like distortion-product otoacoustic emissions in 44 participants, with attention effects limited to a few time-domain metrics.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear whether selective auditory attention can modulate the cochlear amplifier via the medial olivocochlear system, and prior findings using speech-like DPOAEs needed replication.
• What they did: Forty-four participants listened to a female and male talker competing to one ear while speech-like DPOAEs were recorded from the other ear; stimuli used resolved and unresolved harmonics across low (up to 1.5 kHz) and transitional (1.5 to 4 kHz) regimes with pitch-shifted fundamentals.
• The result: Emission amplitude showed no attention dependence for any stimulus type, frequency-domain metrics showed none, and only isolated opposite-direction attentional effects appeared for two stimulus types.

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