Theory of Temporal Auditory Summation

Abstract

A theory of temporal auditory summation is developed and applied to the threshold of audibility for various temporal patterns of pulses and sinusoidal vibrations. The theory is based on the assumption of an exponential decay of neural excitation and, for the threshold of audibility, it includes only one time constant. Various factors that may affect temporal auditory summation are discussed. It is shown that the same theory applies to muscle contractions.