Abstract Many people have suprathreshold auditory processing difficulties despite normal audiometric thresholds, referred to as “hidden hearing loss.” Such difficulties are widely thought to originate from pathology of the inner hair cell ribbon synapse (cochlear synaptopathy) following noise-exposure-induced temporary threshold shifts. This pathology impairs the temporally-precise sound encoding necessary for spatial hearing, but direct evidence in primates, human or nonhuman, is lacking.
