Speaker
Description
Transmission-line models have a unique place in the cochlear-mechanics field. Because they are the simplest model that includes an explicit representation of the traveling wave’s physics, they have been instrumental in developing and popularizing several cochlear mechanical theories that are now well-established (e.g., coherent reflection and amplification theories).Because transmission-line models are computationally light enough to perform time-domain simulation in a reasonable time, they occupy a special niche at the interface between cochlear mechanics, auditory modeling, and, more recently, AI-powered auditory signal processing.Despite having been at the forefront of hearing science for more than a century, transmission-line models are not without flaws. Because they neglect two-dimensional hydrodynamics effects that largely contribute to the cochlear response, this class of models struggles to replicate well-known features of the experimental data (e.g., the full dynamic range of cochlear amplification), and it is inadequate to study the fine details of cochlear amplification. Transmission-line fans shall not despair: here we show how to modify the transmission line—at no extra computational cost—to incorporate a physically accurate account of two-dimensional cochlear hydrodynamics. With the proposed modification, the transmission line performance becomes virtually identical to that of a complete two-dimensional model. Viva la Transmission Line!