A half-century's perspective on Békésy tracking and loudness growth at threshold

In the more than half a century since Georg von Bekesy was awarded the Nobel Prize, many of his findings have stood the test of time. Implications of the width of the excursions in the Bekesy tracking procedure, however, are not as simple as described in his classic book, Experiments in Hearing (von Bekesy, 1960). The interpretations of his findings have created some misunderstandings in hearing science and audiology. This article reviews a large body of data on Bekesy tracking and more recent threshold, discrimination, and loudness data in order to answer the following question: Is the width of the excursions a reliable indicator of cochlear pathology?