Abstract
Threshold in quiet has always been of great interest in hearing research. Suprathreshold measurements, however, have usually been obtained for levels above 30 dB, leading to a lack of data for low levels. This lack became pronounced after the discovery of several effects all of which can be interpreted as stemming from nonlinear active feedback in the cochlea, which is especially effective at low levels. These effects are the following: level dependent basilar membrane displacement patterns (Rhode, 1971; Patuzzi et al., 1984), level dependent tuning curves in the inner hair cells (Russell and Sellick, 1978), three kinds of oto-acoustic emissions (Kemp, 1978; Ruggero et al., 1983; Schloth, 1983; Wilson, 1980a; Wit and Ritsma, 1980; Zurek, 1981) and the correlations between them (Zwicker and Schloth, 1984), and the large (2f.-f)-difference tones measured at low primary levels either as cancellation levels (Zwicker, 1981) or as oto-acoustic emission levels (Wilson, 1980b). An active preprocessing with nonlinear feedback, as discussed earlier in principle (Zwicker, 1979), has been realized in an analog model (Zwicker, 1986a) and in a digital model (Zwicker and Lumer, 1985); both models clearly demonstrate the effects described above (Zwicker, 1986b).
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Zwicker, E. (1986). Spontaneous Oto-Acoustic Emissions, Threshold in Quiet, and Just Noticeable Amplitude Modulation at Low Levels. In: Moore, B.C.J., Patterson, R.D. (eds) Auditory Frequency Selectivity. Nato ASI Series, vol 119. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2247-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2247-4_6
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