Elsevier Editorial System(tm) for Hearing Research Manuscript Draft ...

25) The ESS information in figures 3 and 4 seems largely redundant, as the AEP responses in
Figure 4 are the 12 subject sub-set of responses from Figure 3. Is this correct? Why not
show comparison traces for the manual versus automatic rejection for both experimental
studies in Figure 4? This could largely eliminate the need to plot the same responses in
Figure 3. (of course, without the direct comparison for an additional six subjects). Also, it
would be helpful to include some labeling of peaks and landmarks in the figures; for example
arrows or lines showing where P1, N1, and P2 were approximated for each subject. Arrows
showing implant artifact (and possibly residual artifact as might be apparent for some
subjects in Figure 4 for the TNS study). In other words, some way to better alert the reader to
the key information in each figure.
Reply: Fig. 4 has been revised according to the reviewers’ suggestions.
Reviewer #3:
26) Manual selection of ICs is tedious, subjective and usually inaccurate, so method for
automatic selection is welcome. However, the IC corresponding to the CI electrical artifact is
usually very obvious (e.g. usually appear as the first IC using FAST ICA or JADER or by
plotting its topography) such that an elaborate procedure as the one suggested may not be
necessary. At least it needs to be more clearly justified than what is presented -lines 100-118,
(e.g. by providing an example where a simple IC selection fails). A comparison between the
CIAC method and standard methods of CI artifact correction would highlight the benefit of
the technique. Comparing to manual selection is not really appropriate or valid.
Reply: We are not aware of any solid, published evidence showing that FASTICA or JADER
(or any other ICA algorithm) consistently identifies the CI electrical artifact as the first IC. In
most algorithms ICs are sorted by descending order regarding the amount of variance they
explain, and whether this is the case depends, we believe, on a number of issues (like the
stimulus presentation duration relative to the total recording time, among others). The figure
below shows the position of identified ICs in each individual, clearly demonstrating that
components are relatively widely distributed.
10