Overview

Abstract

Models have always been a special feature of hearing research. Von Helmholtz (1954) likened the ear to a piano, an array of resonances each tuned to a different frequency. In modern psychophysics, the dominant models are often drawn from radio or radar technology and feature filters, amplifiers, oscillators, detectors, integrators, etc. In physiology, there have been many models of the individual components along the auditory pathway such as the Davis (1965) battery theory of cochlear transduction and Hodgkin and Huxley (1952) models of the initiation of spike activity in nerve fibers. These models are attractive to researchers because they are explicit and quantitative.