The simplest form of the theory says that the vibration causes a nerve to fire every \(0.002\text{ s}\), sending a signal to the brain that is interpreted as a \(500\text{ Hz}\) sound. One difficulty ...The simplest form of the theory says that the vibration causes a nerve to fire every \(0.002\text{ s}\), sending a signal to the brain that is interpreted as a \(500\text{ Hz}\) sound. One difficulty with this theory is that the nerves attached to the hair cells in the cochlea don't seem to fire as often as the theory would predict (and can't fire at a rate of \(20,000\text{ Hz}\), at the high end of human hearing).
