Cochlear Signal Processing in the Hearing Impaired Ear

In this talk I shall describe the mechanical function of the cochlea in terms of the signal processing function. The cochlea is the organ in the body that analyzes the wide-band acoustic signals of the outside world, and converts them to the neural code that is then processed by the neural auditory centers in the cortex. Based on clinical studies of hearing impaired subjects we know that the job of the cochlea is very important to normal auditory function. The most common symptom in these subjects is a loss of dynamic range in their hearing, most notably a loss of sensitivity at threshold. This problem is typically most severe in the higher frequency end of the spectrum, namely above a few kilohertz.