100 University of California Publications in Anatomy [Vol. 2 



and so forth) — hence there will be as many consonances and disso- 

 nances. With the help of the above scheme it is easy to construe any 

 combination of two, or three, or more, harmonious or disharmonious, 

 indi\ddual, simple stimuli in one or in several octaves. But the 

 pleasant or unpleasant impression will always depend on whether, in 

 such a combination, the stimulated groups of cells will be separated 

 from, or will be next to, or near the groups of hair cells which by 

 means of spironeural fibers are in the relation of octaves. 



The hypothesis as to the minute function of the auditory mechan- 

 isms expounded above, goes further than to accept merely the decom- 

 position in the inner ear of complex physical acoustic phenomena into 

 primitive or elementary forms as postulated by the resonance theory 

 of Helmholtz. The new point of view lays stress in greater 

 degree upon the peripheral apparatus, even as regards the synthetic 

 side of the auditory process. Already in the cochlea, according to this 

 concept, certain definite and stable relationships of certain, definite, 

 primitive, auditory processes would be achieved and would be trans- 

 mitted to the cortex in a ready-made and more complex form. From 

 this viewpoint the performance of the basilar membrane, with the 

 orthoneural receptors-conductors alone, appears as that of an analyzer 

 and a decomposer of complex sounds, while the role of the orthoneural 

 and spironeural apparatus taken together is essentially that of a 

 synthesizer. By explaining auditory processes in this way, the analysis 

 appears greatly, perhaps entirely, as a peripheral process, yet at least 

 a part of the synthesis also is accomplished in the peripheral organ. 

 Such an explanation gives new meaning to the analyzing ability of the 

 cochlea which, if existing alone, would be puzzling in ^dew of the fact 

 that the elementary forms of auditory sensations are undoubtedly put 

 together again somewhere in the central organ, according to accepted 

 opinion. From this new viewpoint, while it is true that elementary 

 acoustic sensations are fused in higher centers, it is also true that, 

 partly at least, the fusion takes place in the peripheral organ itself. 

 Thus auditory sensations reach the cortex not as simple sensations, but 

 as preformed complexes of elementary sensations, due to this peculiar 

 double pattern of the cochlear nervous supply. The cochlear mechan- 

 ism thus relieves the auditory cortex of part of its synthesizing func- 

 tions and frees it for the truly higher mnemonic, integrating, ekphoric, 

 and the like auditory processes which underlie the identifying of 

 simple tones and related processes. 



