At a level for doctoral or medical students in neurosciences, audiology, or physiology, Physiology of the Ear, 2E has brought together in a complete and concise manner a compilation of articles written by experts in their specialty and addressing clinical and basic science aspects of ear physiology. The text begins with a history of the discovery of the anatomy and physiology of the ear and works systematically from the external, middle, and inner ear to the brain. Easy to read and understand, this text can be used as a resource or as a tool for study and review. It covers topics such as sound and bone conduction mechanisms, signal processing, stimulus coding in the auditory system, blood circulation of the cochlea, and auditory brain mapping. It highlights the application of new research findings to the management problems encountered in everyday practice, and covers important aspects of nonauditory physiology such as skin migration in the ear canal.

In planning The Handbook volumes on Audition, we, the editors, made the decision that there should be many authors, each writing about the work in the field that he knew best through his own research, rather than a few authors who would review areas of research with which they lacked first hand familiarity. For the purposes of the chapters on Audition, sensory physiology has been defined very broadly to include studies from the many disciplines that contribute to our understanding of the structures concerned with hearing and the processes that take place in these structures in man and in lower animals. A number of chapters on special topics have been included in order to present information that might not be covered by the usual chapters dealing with anatomical, physi ological and behavioral aspects of hearing. We wish to thank all authors of the volumes on Audition for the contributions that they have made. We feel confident that their efforts will also be appreciated by the many scientists and clinicians who will make use of the Handbook for many years to come. WOLF D. KEIDEL WILLIAM D. NEFF Erlangen Bloomington August 1974 Contents Introduction. By G. v. BEKESY t. With 3 Figures. . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1 Consideration of the Acoustic Stimulus. By R. R. PFEIFFER. With Chapter 2 19 Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Comparative Anatomy of the Middle Ear. By O. W. HENSON Jr. With Chapter 3 23 Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 . . . . .

Auditory Physiology describes the functions of the ear and the auditory nervous system, using well-documented research work. This book explains the physiology of the ear, the general function of the auditory nervous system, and its anatomy. This text also discusses in detail the neurophysiological basis for discriminating frequency and time. This discrimination refers in particular to (1) the ability to distinguish two sounds on the basis of their frequencies when the two sounds are not presented at the same time; and (2) the ability to discriminate one spectral component in a complex sound that contains several spectral components. This book notes that for low frequencies, temporal analysis is more useful in processing complex sounds than the simple determination of energy in different frequency bands. Research shows that particular spatial patterns of response to different characteristic of complex sounds can exist, which are not feature detectors such as neurons specifically tuned to special and complex properties of a certain stimulus. This book can prove beneficial for physiologists, neurobiologists, neurophysiologists, general medical practioners, and EENT specialists.

A version of the OpenStax text

There is a new trend in the education of audiologists that emphasizes the basics of hearing--Hearing: Its Physiology and Pathophysiology addresses this trend. It covers not only the basics of hearing but also the basics of pathophysiology, which is not covered in a comprehensive way in any other text today. This book recognizes the fact that the diseased auditory system does indeed function, but in a different way than the normal system. Few books have addressed the pathophysiology of the ear and the auditory nervous system. Most books on hearing begin with a detailed description of the physics of sound, which scares many readers away because they believe they need to understand acoustics to understand how the ear functions. Hearing: Its Physiology and Pathophysiology does not assume that the readers are physicists, which would be analogous to assuming that visual physiologists would need to know quantum mechanics to understand how the visual nervous system functions. * This book provides a thorough understanding of the anatomy and function of the auditory system * To the basic scientist, it will provide an understanding of the auditory system and how it works * To the clinician, it will provide insight into the normal and diseased auditory system