Some factors affecting recovery from poststimulatory fatigue. I

Recovery from poststimulatory fatigue was measured on subjects with normal hearing and patients with unilateral cochlear and retrocochlear hearing impairments. Ears were stimulated by steady tones at various intensity levels for 3 min. Thresholds during the recovery period were obtained at the stimulated frequencies by using both the steady tone only and the tones alternated between interrupted and steady tones. For all subjects, alternate presentation of tones resulted in more rapid recovery to preexposure level than steady tone presentation. These results seem to indicate that the off‐time of interrupted tones permits the fast recovery from fatigue for the auditory nervous system. It is presumed that, by varying the on‐off ratio, a variety of recovery patterns may be measured.