Adaptation in hearing-impaired ears: effects of intermediate duration stimuli

Recovery from adaptation was measured in acoustically-traumatized ears of cats for pure-tone adapters 1-60 s in duration at levels of 60-100 dB SPL. Adaptation was assessed by measuring the whole nerve action potentials in response to pure-tone stimuli. Effects of changing probe frequency and of changing adapter duration were measured. Impaired ears showed less adaptation than normal ears for adapters of similar SPL, but they showed relatively normal spread of adaptation across probe frequency. The effect was larger for long duration stimuli than for short duration stimuli.