A History of Discoveries on Hearing (Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, 77)

This volume focuses on the history of research on hearing from comparative approaches. Each chapters examines the most formative studies that led to current understanding of hearing across taxa and still influence hearing research in general. Much of the early work on hearing, which goes back to Aristotle, as well as the classic work of 16 th to early 20 th century scientists (e.g., Spellanzani, Retzius, Ramón y Cajal, and Helmholtz) is not well known to modern investigators. Similarly, work in the first 75 years of the 20 th century is also unknown or, in some cases, dismissed because it is “old.” Much of the earlier work describes research approaches and results fundamental to our understanding of hearing as well as the beauty of observation and synthesis. The pioneering work on hearing contains ideas and questions that are still germane today. Thus, the goal of this volume is to introduce, review, and put into perspective, older but exemplary, extraordinary studies by investigators that form the basis of our knowledge as well as questions being asked today. Each chapter includes the first significant observations and approaches to hearing in the taxa and/or hearing type that is the focus of the chapter with some of the most important earlier papers discussed in some detail, including the theories, formative experiments, results, and conclusions. Each chapter provides briefer notations and citations of additional important papers that are outgrowths of the founding research – or correlate and even reverse the original works. This volume is a departure from the classic approach established for the SHAR books in which the focus has been on a single topic, and on the most recent and exciting discoveries. One difference in this volume from past SHAR volumes is that we have a more coordinated approach for the chapters to ensure that this volume is, indeed, a documentation of hearing research history, not a review of the latest status of the topic. A second difference is that the focus of the volume is on the historical value of studies. In that sense, the volume maintains the tutorial value for which SHAR books are famous, but it explores the ancestry of modern research in order to help new researchers to gain perspective on important questions and on fundamental information they may not fully appreciate – to their loss. Our interest in doing this volume comes from phenomena familiar to most senior investigators - that younger investigators often have little or no sense of the history of their discipline, and they often do not know that their “hot” new idea was not only pursued, and often solved, but further that it was solved in an elegant way. We believe it is important to bring the methodologies and discoveries on hearing done before the advent of the internet to light, for the benefit and growth of new research. In deciding on the chapter divisions for this book, we considered a number of different organizational schemes, and particularly using as a focus methodological approaches (e.g., psychoacoustics, low to high frequency types, physiology, anatomy). However, we came to the conclusion that most investigators tend to be more focused on working within a particular taxonomic group, settling on particular taxa, in many cases driven by the special hearing abilities. We also concluded that that this approach is more naturally related to the evolution not only of hearing, but also to the evolution of ideas, as much of hearing science was part of the “natural philosopher” approach that was a core element of historical discoveries. The Acoustical Society of America Series Preface Preface 1992 Volume Preface Contents Contributors Chapter 1: A History of Discoveries on Hearing: An Overview 1.1 Introduction to the Volume 1.2 Volume Overview 1.2.1 Insects 1.2.2 Fishes 1.2.3 Amphibians 1.2.4 Lizards 1.2.5 Birds 1.2.6 Marine Mammals 1.2.7 Bats 1.2.8 Mammalian Central Processing 1.3 Final Thoughts Chapter 2: Insect Hearing: Selected Historical Vignettes 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 Three Cautionary Notes in Comparing Hearing in Terrestrial Vertebrates with Insects 2.1.1.1 Body Size Constrains Structure and Function of Hearing Organs in Insects 2.1.1.2 Insect Hearing Organs Can Detect Pressure Differences in Acoustic Airflow as Well as Particle Velocity Depending on Species and Body Size 2.1.1.3 Evolutionary Origins 2.2 The Bioacoustics, Evolution, and Neuroethology of Calling Song in Crickets 2.2.1 The Scientific Study of Acoustic Behavior in Crickets: The First Model System in Insect Bioacoustics 2.2.2 Regen and Playback Experiments 2.2.3 More Playback Experiments 2.2.4 The Cricket’s Tympanal Hearing Organ 2.2.5 Evolutionary Convergence of Tympanal Hearing Organs: Crickets and Their Parasitic Flies 2.2.6 The Genetic Control of Cricket Song 2.2.7 The Acoustico-Motor Linkage in Species-Specific Phonotactic Behavior in Crickets 2.3 Hearing Insects II: Moths and Neuroethology 2.3.1 All Night-Flying Insects Have a Bat Problem 2.4 Cockroaches Are Great Escape Artists, But Can They Hear? 2.4.1 Supersized Sonic Roaches: The “Hissing Cockroaches” of Madagascar 2.5 The Familiar, Aggravating, Hum of Mosquitos 2.5.1 Are the Low-Pitched Tones of a Flying Mosquito Mating Signals? 2.6 Loudest for Last: Cicada Songs 2.6.1 Cicadas as Human Fetish Objects 2.6.2 The Scientific Study of Cicada Bioacoustic and Hearing 2.7 The Age of Neurophysiology and Auditory Physiology 2.7.1 Insect Auditory Neurophysiology—Post-World War II and the 1950s 2.8 Sizing Up Insect Hearing, a Reprise 2.9 After Words References Chapter 3: Evolution of the Understanding of Fish Hearing 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Anatomical Studies of the Inner Ear 3.3 Ideas About Fish Hearing Prior to 1900 3.4 Experimental Studies Demonstrating Hearing in Fishes 3.5 What Fishes Hear? 3.5.1 Auditory Frequency Range and Sensitivity 3.5.1.1 Otophysans 3.5.1.2 Non-Otophysan Species with Gas-Filled Chambers Associated with the Ear 3.5.1.3 Non-Otophysan Species Without Gas-Filled Chambers Associated with the Ear 3.5.1.4 Other Investigations of Fish Hearing 3.5.2 Auditory Discrimination 3.6 The Quest for the Hearing Organ(s) 3.6.1 The Function of the Labyrinth 3.6.2 Sound Stimulation of Otolith Organs 3.6.3 The Swim Bladder as an Accessory Hearing Organ 3.7 The Lateral Line System 3.8 Directional Hearing 3.9 Conclusions References Chapter 4: A Nasty, Brutish, and Short History of Amphibian Bioacoustics 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Amphibian Communication as Known to the Ancients 4.2.1 Antiquity to Middle Ages 4.2.2 The Onset of Systematic Zoology—The Sixteenth Century 4.2.3 The Structure of Frog Middle and Inner Ear 4.2.4 Anatomy of the Middle Ear—The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 4.2.5 Anatomy of the Inner Ear—The Nineteenth Century 4.2.5.1 Darwin’s Observations of Acoustic Communication in Amphibia 4.3 The Modern Age—The Twentieth Century 4.3.1 W. Frank Blair 4.3.1.1 Vocal Production by Amphibians 4.3.2 Murray J. Littlejohn 4.3.3 Robert R. Capranica 4.3.3.1 Work Inspired by the Holy Trinity 4.3.4 E.R. (Ted) Lewis 4.4 Conclusion References Chapter 5: The History of Auditory Research in Lizards 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Authors Before 1900 5.3 The Transition to Modern Times and Early Physiology 5.3.1 Modern Anatomical Studies (1950 Onward) 5.3.2 Anatomical Studies of Miller and Wever 5.3.3 Further Anatomical Studies 5.3.4 Types of Tectorial Membrane and Their Physiological Consequences 5.4 Middle-Ear Studies 5.4.1 Pressure-Gradient Middle Ears in Lizards 5.5 A Short History of the Auditory Physiology of Lizards 5.5.1 Cochlear Microphonic Studies 5.5.2 The Function of the Lagena 5.5.3 Studies of Auditory-Neuron Responses and Models of Papillar Function 5.6 Modern Days: Otoacoustic Emissions and Active Processes in Lizard Ears References Chapter 6: Birds as a Model in Hearing Research 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Hearing in Birds: Detection, Discrimination, and Categorization 6.2.1 Detection 6.2.2 Frequency and Intensity Discrimination 6.2.3 Masking 6.2.4 Temporal Processing 6.2.5 Song Learning and Perceptual Categories 6.3 Recovery of Function Following Hair Cell Regeneration 6.4 Binaural Hearing and Sound Localization 6.4.1 Exploiting Natural Orienting Responses for Investigating Sound Localization 6.4.2 The Birds’ Ability for Discriminating Sounds from Two Directions 6.4.3 Comparison of Localization Cues Across Species 6.4.4 The Barn Owl as a Model for Neural Processing of Auditory Spatial Information 6.5 Bird Hearing in Complex Acoustic Environments 6.5.1 Masking and the Cocktail-Party Effect 6.5.2 Auditory Scene Analysis 6.6 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Discoveries in Marine Mammal Hearing 7.1 Introduction 7.1.1 Transition from Land to Water 7.2 Historical Views of Marine Mammals 7.2.1 Ancient Natural History 7.2.2 Middle Ages to Modern Era 7.3 Anatomy of Underwater Hearing 7.3.1 Cetacean Ears 7.3.2 Sound Conduction to the Middle Ear 7.3.3 Biosonar Adaptations of Cetacean Inner Ears 7.4 Discovering Ultrasonic Hearing and Echolocation 7.4.1 Recordings 7.4.2 Behavioral Observations 7.4.3 Behavioral Experiments 7.4.4 Audiograms 7.4.5 Critical Ratios and Critical Bands 7.4.6 Electrophysiological Studies of Auditory Signal Processing 7.4.7 Intensity Discrimination 7.4.8 Frequency Discrimination 7.4.9 Directional Discrimination 7.4.9.1 Pinnipeds 7.4.9.2 Dolphins 7.5 Cold War Science and a Thaw 7.6 Acoustic Communication 7.6.1 Songs 7.6.2 Signature Whistles and Codas 7.7 Conclusions References Chapter 8: Development of Models for Bat Echolocation 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Early Theorizing (1912–1920) 8.2.1 The Role of Bats in Inspiring Maxim’s Acoustical Iceberg Detector 8.2.2 Hartridge and the Use of High-Frequency Sound 8.3 Target Ranging from Echo Delay 8.3.1 Beat Frequency and Pitch Theories 8.3.2 The Beat Frequency Theory of FM Echolocation 8.3.3 Beat Frequency Theory of Constant Frequency Echolocation 8.3.4 Time-Difference Pitch Theory 8.3.5 Envelope Detection Theory 8.4 Pulse Compression Theory 8.4.1 Spectrogram Correlation Theory 8.4.2 Spectrogram Transformation Theory 8.4.3 Pulse-Echo Ambiguity and Frequency Hopping 8.5 Summary References Chapter 9: Central Auditory Processing in the Mammalian System 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Historical Summaries 9.2.1 Early Ideas from the Greeks and Romans 9.2.2 Anatomy and Auditory Processing Ideas During the Second Millennium 9.2.2.1 Study of Anatomy During the Renaissance 9.2.2.2 Fourier and Helmholtz’s Ideas About Sounds 9.2.2.3 Neuroanatomy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 9.2.2.4 First Brainwaves by Hallowell Davis 9.3 Sensory Processing and Modeling of the CAS 9.3.1 Sound Localization: Rayleigh’s Duplex Theory, Jeffress’s Model of Interaural Time Difference Processing, and the Experiments of Goldberg and Brown 9.3.2 An Interactive Empirical and Theoretical Environment for Developing Models of Auditory Signal Processing 9.4 Cortical Processing of Sounds 9.4.1 Functional Anatomy, Physiology, and Behavioral Roles of Auditory Cortex 9.4.2 Single-Unit Activity and Neural Encoding of Sounds in Auditory Cortex 9.5 Concluding Remarks References