Cochlear gain control.

The nonlinear auditory phenomena of compression, suppression, and distortion are known to have a cochlear-mechanical origin. An instantaneous nonlinear transfer function is often assumed to underlie these phenomena, but there are experimental indications that auditory nonlinearity is sluggish rather than instantaneous. This study analyzes the consequences of such sluggishness, using automatic gain control (AGC) as a model noninstantaneous nonlinearity. The distinctive characteristic of AGC, its delayed action, is shown to produce a number of observable and measurable effects that distinguish AGC from instantaneous nonlinearities. A major class of such AGC-specific effects concerns the phase of aural distortion products. For example, the phase of the cancellation tone in the classical psychoacoustic cancellation paradigm is linearly related to the frequency spacing of the primary tones in an AGC, as opposed to the square-law relationship produced by an instantaneous nonlinearity. These and other predictions are confronted with experimental data from the literature. The impact of putative AGC-related delays on the interpretation of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) is discussed. Detailed suggestions are made for experiments specifically aimed at determining whether cochlear nonlinearity is instantaneous or delayed.