Abstract:Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are sound energy generated by healthy inner ears when stimulated by two fixed-frequency pure tones. Since DPOAEs are physiologically related with the functional status of the inner ears, DPOAE measurement has been widely used in both hearing screening of newborns and hearing diagnoses of adults. However, there are some limitations in current measurements of DPOAE, such as complex operation, insufficient resolution and low efficiency. In this study, a new method in which frequency-varying swept tones were used to replace pure tones to evoke DPOAEs was proposed to overcome the limitations of current methods. In this method, a threeinterval paradigm was employed to eliminate the stimulus artifacts and a dynamic tracking filter was used to extract highquality swept-tone DPOAEs from the recorded signals. The results show that the swept-tone method can improve both the efficiency and frequency-resolution of current methods. Moreover, the swept-tone DPOAEs within a wide frequency range can help to identify the exact location of the hearing loss. Using swept tones to measure DPOAEs can be beneficial in developing a new type of OAE device with high efficiency to help doctors with accurate diagnoses and appropriate treatments in the clinic.