Auditory nerve encoding of high-frequency spectral information

Authors:
Ana Alves-Pinto;Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda;Alan R. Palmer
Affiliations:
Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y Len, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain;Instituto de Neurociencias de Castilla y Len, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain;MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Venue:
IWINAC'05 Proceedings of the First international conference on Mechanisms, Symbols, and Models Underlying Cognition: interplay between natural and artificial computation - Volume Part I
Year:
2005

Citing 1
Cited 1

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Speech Communication - Special issue on the nature of speech perception (the psychophysics of speech perception III)

Rate versus time representation of high-frequency spectral notches in the peripheral auditory system: A computational modeling study

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Abstract

We have recently shown [1] that our ability to discriminate between a flat-spectrum noise and a similar noise with a high-frequency spectral notch deteriorates for levels around 70-80 dB SPL. The present paper explores an underlying physiological mechanism for this result. The hypothesis is that discriminability relies on the sensitivity of the auditory nerve to changes in the stimulus spectrum. A good correlation was found between behavioural results and sensitivity functions for two auditory nerve fibers with different dynamic ranges and with characteristic frequencies within the notch band. Although preliminary, these results suggest that the sensitivity of the auditory nerve to spectral notches is a non-monotonic function of stimulus level.