Post‐stimulus‐time histograms (PSTs) were obtained for responses to tone and wide‐band‐noise bursts with stimulus rise times (RTs) between 0–25 ms. For the longer RTs, the PSTs built up to a peak and then decayed, and the results resembled those reported by Rigdenet al.[J. Acoust. Soc. Am.63, S77(A) (1978)]. At low‐sound intensities the time delay to the peak approached the stimulus RT, and the delay decreased as intensity increased. In some units, during certain time intervals, firing rate was a nonmonotonic function of sound intensity even though overall firing tale increased monotonically. These shape changes and nonmonotonicities were not present for the shortest RTs, suggesting that they do not reflect a time‐dependent nonlinearity and may result from an interaction between the long stimulus RT and a monotonically increasing nonlinearity followed by adaptation. Adding a suppressing tone above CF produced PST shape changes and rate changes similar to those caused by decreasing the sound intensity, further suggesting that intensity‐dependent nonlinearities are located peripherally to the site of adaptation.