Comparison of sequential test strategies based on Monte Carlo simulations in the detection of auditory steady-state responses

It is common to use sequential testing strategies to help reduce the time of automated detection of an auditory steady-state response (ASSR). However, the application of repeated tests leads to an increase of false positive rate. Monte Carlo-based strategies are used to overcome this obstacle. Despite several paper could be found describing such strategies, no comprehensive comparison was found in the literature. The chosen strategies are based on Monte Carlo simulations to calculate critical values and were faithfully replicated for comparison purposes, and then the test application parameters were varied to suggest an optimization. The detection rate and/or the detection speed improved with each implemented strategy, except for the one related to the year 2013, which increased the false positive rate to 15.3%. The other strategies kept the false positive rate under control. The Pareto curves compared the optimizations of the strategies and revealed that the modified 2015 strategy had the performance achieving 5.6% higher than the original parameters. The automated detection of ASSR improved with each implemented strategy, but not all of them kept a controlled false positive rate (2013 and 2015). The 2015 modified strategy had the highest detection rate in the shortest time.