Intensity discrimination of noise in the presence of band-reject noise

Weber’s law holds over atleast an 80-dB range for intensity discrimination of 200-msec bursts of noise. Weber’s law holds over a comparable range when information regarding intensive differences is effectively restricted to a limited frequency region by the addition of a relatively intense band-reject noise. In particular, no failure of Weber’s law is observed at intensities for which the discharge rates of fibers innervating the frequency region of the stopband are presumably saturated. These results do not support the generally accepted notion that a spread of excitation along the cochlear partition with increasing intensity is necessary for the auditory system to maintain its large dynamic range.