Unveiling Stimulus Transduction Artifacts in Auditory Steady-State Response Experiments: Characterization, Risks, and Mitigation Strategies

Abstract This scientific paper addresses the potential risk of spurious responses in neuroscientific auditory steady-state response (ASSR) experiments attributed to transduction artifacts. The focus is particularly on click train stimuli, given their spectral content in the frequency range of interest (e.g., 40 Hz). Building upon a pilot experiment demonstrating the existence of the artifact in a phantom head, this study focuses on the characterization of stimulus artifacts in extended measurements with phantoms and the evaluation of associated risks in experiments involving human subjects. The investigation is divided into two parts: the first part scrutinizes stimulus artifact properties crucial for mitigation, while the second part assesses risks in ASSR experiments with human subjects based on the characterized artifact. The discussion covers stimulus characterization, experimental setups with phantoms, and experiments with human subjects, exploring potential sources of the artifact, its spatial properties, and the influence of re-referencing. The results reveal the role of headphone cables as a source of stimulus artifacts, along with the surprising impact of headphone transducers. The study emphasizes the need for careful experimental design and data analysis to avoid misinterpretations of stimulus artifacts as genuine brain responses in ASSR experiments.