Pitch Discrimination in Orthoptera (Insecta) demonstrated by Responses of Central Auditory Neurones

Abstract

FOR about twenty years, since Pumphrey's review of hearing in insects¹, the commonly accepted view has been that the auditory organs of insects convey to the central nervous system considerable data about the pattern of amplitude of impinging sounds. There has been, on the other hand, no good evidence that the primary sensory nerves can or must convey cues as to the pitch of a sound stimulus and there has been no good evidence that the central nervous system responds differentially to one pitch rather than another, irrespective of intensity.