Heffner R S, Heffner H E
J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1982 Dec;96(6):926-44.
A young Indian elephant was tested to determine its absolute sensitivity, frequency-discrimination thresholds, and sound-localization thresholds. The elephant was found to have an audibility curve similar to that of other mammals but one that is more sensitive to low frequencies and less sensitive to high frequencies than any other mammalian audiogram including human's. The elephant's sensitivity to frequency differences at low frequencies was found to equal that of humans. Finally, the elephant was found to be very accurate at localizing sounds in the azimuthal plane, with thresholds around 1 degree for broad-band noise. The elephant's ability to localize pure tones suggested that it could use both binaural time- and intensity-difference cues to localize sound.
对一头年轻的印度象进行了测试，以确定其绝对灵敏度、频率辨别阈值和声音定位阈值。结果发现，这头大象的听觉曲线与其他哺乳动物相似，但与包括人类在内的任何其他哺乳动物听力图相比，它对低频更敏感，对高频不太敏感。研究发现，大象在低频时对频率差异的敏感度与人类相当。最后，发现大象在方位平面上定位声音非常准确，宽带噪声的阈值约为1度。大象定位纯音的能力表明，它可以利用双耳时间差和强度差线索来定位声音。
