Upper limit to stapes displacement: implications for hearing loss.

Based on calculations from existing data, the human middle ear appears to have a displacement limit of about 30 μ peak to peak and becomes nonlinear at about 10 μ peak to peak. This nonlinearity begins at free‐field SPLs of 110 to 120 dB in the midrange of frequencies. The presence of an absolute limit to stapes displacements indicates that at high SPLs there is a high‐frequency bias in the conducting mechanism which may in part be responsible for the high‐frequency hearing loss commonly seen following industrial and/or impulsive noise exposure.