When measuring tuning curves of single units in the auditory nerve (e. g. KIANG et al. 1965, KATSUKI 1966, EVANS 1972) the sound pressure level of a tone burst is increased until the spike rate of a single fibre reaches a particular value just above the spontaneous activity. This value is chosen more or less arbitrarily, but has to be a constant response criterion, for example 1 spike per tone burst (KIANG et al. 1970). The sound pressure level of the tone burst necessary to reach this criterion as a function of its frequency is called the tuning curve. The SPL of the tone, its frequency f, the response criterion and the single fibre are the 4 values involved in the production of such tuning curves. To produce corresponding curves in psychoacoustics, equivalents to these 4 values have to be found. Level of the tone (burst) and its frequency f can be identical values whereas the equivalent of the response criterion can be realized in some kind of a threshold. However, a single fibre has no direct psychoacoustical equivalent, but a very faint sinusoidal tone with a frequency corresponding to the characteristic frequency (CF) of the fibre may be a good approximation, although the spatial extension of a single fibre is always ``narrower'' than the excitation produced by a faint tone.
CITATION STYLE
Zwicker, E. (1974). On a Psychoacoustical Equivalent of Tuning Curves (pp. 132–141). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-65902-7_19
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