Simulation on the Comparison of Steady-State Responses Synthesized by Transient Templates Based on Superposition Hypothesis

The generation of auditory-evoked steady-state responses (SSRs) is associated with the linear superposition of transient auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) that cannot be directly observed. A straightforward way to justify the superposition hypothesis is the use of synthesized SSRs by a transient AEP under a predefined condition based on the forward process of this hypothesis. However, little is known about the inverse relation between the transient AEP and its synthetic SSR, which makes the interpretation of the latter less convincible because it may not necessarily underlie the true solution. In this study, we chose two pairs of AEPs from the conventional and deconvolution paradigms, which represent the homo-AEPs from a homogenous group and the hetero-AEPs from two heterogeneous groups. Both pairs of AEPs were used as templates to synthesize SSRs at rates of 20–120 Hz. The peak-peak amplitudes and the differences between the paired waves were measured. Although amplitude enhancement occurred at ~40 Hz, comparisons between the available waves demonstrated that the relative differences of the synthetic SSRs could be dramatically larger at other rates. Moreover, two virtually identical SSRs may come from clearly different AEPs. These results suggested inconsistent relationships between the AEPs and their corresponding SSRs over the tested rates.