Temporal resolution in the dolphin's auditory system revealed by double-click evoked potential study.

Temporal resolution of hearing in two bottlenosed dolphins was estimated by measuring auditory brain-stem response (ABR) recovery in conditions of double-click stimuli. From these data, temporal transfer function of the supposed integrator was derived assuming nonlinear transform of the integrator output to ABR amplitude. The obtained temporal transfer function showed a nearly constant level up to 200 microseconds. then decay to approximately -3 dB at 300 microseconds (as presented in the sound intensity domain), and subsequent decay of 10-11 dB per time doubling (about 35 dB/decade).