Compressive Nonlinearity in the Auditory System: Manifestation in the Action of Complex Sound Signals

Abstract

In psychophysical experiments on humans, a cochlear compression was revealed by comparing onfrequency and low-frequency masking in the conditions of discrimination of complex spectra of sound signals. It has been established that, with an increase in the level of the masker, the limit of the discriminable density of the spectrum ripples decreases. It was noted that when the signal level increased, the on-frequency masker level at threshold grew proportionally to the level of the signal, whereas the low-frequency masker level grew much more slowly, indicating the compression of the signal, which was not affected by lateral suppression and off-frequency listening.