Eustachio is considered one of the founders of the science of human anatomy. His most recognized contribution is his description of the structure that holds his name: "The tube of Eustachio." Eustachio also studied the semicircular canals and the cochleaand described the spiral lamina and the modiolus. Eustachio suggested the mechanism of sound transduction included the auditory ossicles and the tensor tympani.

Vesalius wrote De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the Fabric of the Human Body), which is considered one of the most influential books on human anatomy. Vesalius is regarded as the founder of the new anatomy school based on this and other contributions. He was the first to describe the hearing organ, and also suggests that the organ of hearing should be removed from the skull for investigation.

Falloppio is considered one of the greatest anatomists. His work includes detailed description of the tympanic membrane, the auditory ossicles, the two windows, the promontory, the chorda tympani, the labyrinth, the semicircular canals, the cochlea and the auditory nerve.

Du Verney is considered by many to be the founder of scientific otology. Duverney considered the ultimate organs of sound perception to be the cochlea, the semicircular canals —and within the cochlea, the spiral lamina. He compared the latter to a musical instrument that serves to define the tones and distinguish between them. The theory proposed by Duverney proved not to be correct, since the perception of tones of high pitch is known to occur in the basal turns, and those of low pitch in the upper turns. His work contributed to the current understanding of the tonotopic organization of the auditory system.

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, a philosopher who became a physician, was interested in the relationships between measurable physical (energy) stimuli and their correspondent human perceptions (refer to as psychophysics). He observed that increasing the amplitude of a sound wave (physical energy), causes the sound to appear louder. In pioneering this line of work, he found that a linear step in sound pressure amplitudedoes not result in a linear step in perceived loudness.
Helmholtz also was the first to contribute to our understanding of speed at which the signal is carried along a nerve fiber and provided the first thorough exploration of the nature of the vowel sounds of speech and singing.

Békésy contributed significantly to our understanding of the biophysiological mechanisms by which sound frequencies are encoded in the inner ear. Using strobe photography and silver flakes as a marker, he observed that the basilar membrane (a sensory membrane within the inner ear) moves like a surface wave when stimulated by sound. He also developed a method for dissecting the inner ear of human cadavers while leaving the cochlea partly intact. In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the function of the cochlea in the mammalian hearing organ.