Mechanisms of hearing question

[Eugene Leitl]

On 13 Dec 1998, TONYJEFFS wrote:

The latency has got little to do with temporal resolution. It might well
be that the enhanced resolution is unavailable for short sound bursts. For
this experimental evidence should be obtainable.

Regards,
Eugene Leitl

> My understanding is that the 'dead' cochlea has a frequency resolution of
> around 1/2 an octave, and in vivo it is the 'lateral inhibition' provided by
> the motile outer hair cells (OHCs) that refines this frequency resolution.
> 
> Now consider the following: 
> IHCs initially detect a sound pressure wave and send the information to the
> brain. The brain processes this data, and send instructions back to the
> appropriate OHCs.  The OHCs do their 'fine tuning' work, enabling the
> appropriate IHCs to accurately identify the frequency of the incoming sound.
> 
> If that is approximately correct, I see a  problem:-:
> There would be a delay of the order of milliseconds while (1) the initial
> information is relayed to appropriate brain nuclei, (2) The information is
> processed, (3) instructions are sent to the OHCs.
> 
> Several milliseconds delay seems rather a long time, particularly as I think
> (?) we can hear sounds of a shorter duration than this.
> 
> Is my description along the right lines? I suspect I'm missing something!
> Could  there really such a delay?
> 
> Thanks
> Tony
> 
> 
>