Inspiration from Bertram Scharf's work

Abstract

In 1990, Bertram Scharf and I discussed about me doing a post doc in his laboratory. The opportunity to work with Bertram did not materialize, but his work in loudness, efferents, and attention has been a continuing inspiration not only for my own research but also for auditory perception, physiology and audio engineering in general. For example, a Google Scholar search of "Bertram Scharf" on January 3, 2013 produced 1526 citations for his top 10 papers, with 6 on loudness and critical bands, 2 on efferents and 2 on attention. Here I highlight several recent studies that have been inspired by Scharf's work. The first study showed significant loudness adaptation in patients with auditory neuropathy, particularly those with otoferlin deficits. This result directly supports Scharf's proposition that simple loudness adaptation is due to limited excitation in the sensory process, which in this case can be pinned down to transmitter release and replenishment in the hair cell and nerve synapse. The second study extended Scharf's theoretical work in efferents and attention to improving feedback control in cochlear implant users and tinnitus sufferers. This line of work could help improve cochlear implant speech performance and reduce internal gain to alleviate tinnitus. © 2013 Acoustical Society of America.