Thermal Noise and Active Processes in the Inner Ear: Relating Theory to Experiment

Abstract

In 1948, Gold proposed that the filter characteristics of the auditory system may be influenced by active elements. In the same year, de Vries presented a preliminary analysis of thermal noise in the cochlea and its implications for the detection of the threshold auditory stimulus (cf. de Vries, 1956). With few exceptions, these papers were ignored until the 1970’s, when a number of observations made the concept of active filtering an attractive hypothesis. At the same time, Flerov (1976) resurrected the issue of thermal noise, and we (Bialek and Schweitzer, 1980; 1983) began a more systematic investigation of this problem. VN - readcube.com