Predictors for Estimating Subcortical EEG Responses to Continuous Speech

Perception of sounds and speech involves structures in the auditory brainstem that rapidly process ongoing auditory stimuli. The role of these structures in speech processing can be investigated by measuring their electrical activity using scalp-mounted electrodes. However, typical analysis methods involve averaging neural responses to many short repetitive stimuli that bear little relevance to daily listening environments. Recently, subcortical responses to more ecologically relevant continuous speech were detected using linear encoding models. These methods estimate the temporal response function (TRF), which is a regression model that minimises the error between the measured neural signal and a predictor derived from the stimulus. Using predictors that model the highly non-linear peripheral auditory system may improve linear TRF estimation accuracy and peak detection. Here, we compare predictors from both simple and complex peripheral auditory models for estimating brainstem TRFs on electroencephalography (EEG) data from 24 participants listening to continuous speech. We also discuss the data length required for estimating subcortical TRFs with clear peaks. Interestingly, predictors from simple models resulted in TRFs that were similar to those estimated using complex models, and were much faster to compute. This work paves the way for efficient modelling and detection of subcortical processing of continuous speech, which may lead to improved diagnosis metrics for hearing impairment and assistive hearing technology.