Abstract
Discharges in response to a combination of a best frequency (BF) tone and another harmonically unrelated frequency (F2) tone were recorded from single cochlear nerve fibers of cats. The effects of the F2 tone on discharge distribution within a BF period were analyzed. When F2 was close to BF, the F2 tone disturbed phase-locked firing to a BF tone without reduction of discharge rate. Phase locking to the BF tone was disturbed very little when F2 was far from BF and at the boundary of the response area, although discharge rate was reduced seriously by the “two-tone suppression.” The respective contributions of the BF and F2 tones to discharge elicitation were evaluated and it was concluded that when F2 is close to BF, serious disturbance in phase locking to the BF tone results mainly from the nonlinearity in the transduction process at the receptor site. Conversely, marked reduction in discharge rate by an F2 tone far from BF is mainly due to mechanical nonlinearity in the basilar membrane vibration.
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