Summary
The firing of guinea pig auditory nerve fibres was measured in response to bands of noise of variable bandwidth, centre frequency, and intensity. The total firing rate in the auditory nerve fibre array was calculated as a function of stimulus bandwidth. As the bandwidth increased, the total firing rate increased steadily for stimuli of constant total intensity. There was no sign of a constant portion followed by a break-point, as appears in psychophysical estimates of loudness with similar stimuli (Zwicker et al., 1957). The results cast doubt on the theory (i) that loudness is a direct correlate of the total firing in the auditory nerve, and (ii) that the critical bandwidth is revealed in the activity of auditory nerve fibres. Changes in the form of the firing rate function with cochlear pathology are described.
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Pickles, J.O. (1938). Auditory-Nerve Fibre Correlates of the Critical Bandwidth as Determined by Loudness Estimation. In: Klinke, R., Hartmann, R. (eds) HEARING — Physiological Bases and Psychophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69257-4_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69257-4_23
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