Cochlear compression wave: an implication of the Allen-Fahey experiment.

In order to measure the gain of the cochlear amplifier, de Boer and co-workers recently extended the Allen-Fahey experiment by measuring otoacoustic emissions and basilar membrane vibration [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 1260-1266 (2005)]. Although this new experiment overcame the limitation of the original Allen-Fahey experiment for using a low-frequency ratio, it confirmed the previous finding that there is no detectable cochlear amplification. This result was attributed to destructive interference of the otoacoustic emission over its generation site. The present letter provides an alternative interpretation of the results of the Allen-Fahey experiment based on the cochlear fluid compression-wave theory.