An overview of Bertram Scharfʹs research in France on loudness adaptation

Abstract

Since 1978, Professor Bertram Scharf divided his time between the USA and France. He was a Visiting Scientist at the Laboratoire de Mécanique et d'Acoustique in Marseille until the mid-1990s and collaborated with the University of Marseille (Faculté de Médecine) until his death. One of Bertram Scharf's major contributions to the field of psychoacoustics is in the area of loudness. He first studied spectral loudness summation, when he started working at Harvard University. In France, his work on loudness focused mainly on loudness adaptation. He wrote, "Loudness resembles pain in that it decreases as a function of time only under special stimulus conditions." Bertram Scharf's work with his French colleagues defined aspects of loudness adaptation in its direct (simple loudness adaptation) and indirect (induced loudness adaptation) forms. They studied how the auditory system recovers from loudness adaptation and examined a possible physiological basis for loudness adaptation.